Healthcare

The attorneys in Ogletree Deakins’ Healthcare Industry Group represent healthcare clients throughout the United States and internationally. We understand the unique challenges facing an industry that must balance vital, demanding work with complex compliance requirements and heavy regulation. Our attorneys collaborate on litigation trends, industry developments, government agency activity, and practical strategies to better serve our clients. We handle a wide range of matters, including employment law litigation and counseling, traditional labor law, disability access, data protection and privacy, employee benefits, workplace safety, and immigration.

We represent a wide variety of healthcare industry employers, including:

Nonprofit hospitals and health systems
For-profit hospitals and health systems
Mental health facilities
National, regional, and local medical practices
Clinics, surgical centers, and laboratories
National, regional, and local dental practices
Medical staffing companies
Post-acute care facilities
Assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and retirement communities
Home healthcare companies

Employment Counseling and Litigation

Ogletree Deakins’ lawyers are experienced in handling all aspects of employment law for healthcare employers, from advice and counsel to complex employment litigation in federal and state courts. Our experience in advising and advocating for top hospitals, long-term care facilities, physician practice groups, and other medical providers includes:

litigating employment discrimination cases, including defending clients against age, race, sex, national origin, and religious discrimination claims;
advocating before federal agencies, including the handling of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges, U.S Department of Labor (DOL) audits, and state and local investigations;
defending clients against Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) charges and litigation and advising them on the interactive process for requested accommodations ranging from latex allergies to seizures to blindness;
representing employers in class and collective actions, including those arising under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and state law;
developing and implementing proactive wage and hour compliance initiatives, including payroll, timekeeping, and compensation audits;
advising on Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) issues and claims;
dealing with data breach and unfair competition issues;
providing strategic guidance on the labor and employment aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations, including advising on due diligence, successorship, and joint employer issues; and
drafting employment and independent contractor agreements, as well as compensation and severance plans.

Traditional Labor

Ogletree Deakins has a deep bench of attorneys skilled in addressing traditional labor matters in the healthcare industry. Our services are bolstered by labor practitioners with comprehensive knowledge of the unions targeting the healthcare industry nationwide—their strengths and weaknesses, characteristics, and methods—and the dynamics of union campaigns. A labor law practice grounded in decades of training and a keen tactical sense borne of real-world experience allows us to effectively handle the labor challenges clients face, whether clients are union-free and enjoy direct relationships with their employees and are seeking to continue those relationships, or are unionized and seeking to build constructive relationships with unions.

Union-free healthcare employers face unique challenges, as numerous unions have identified healthcare as a primary focus for expansion and have even established “healthcare” divisions. We have experience helping healthcare clients remain union-free by:

providing interactive and engaging positive employee-relations training and providing clients with training materials tailored to the specific needs of healthcare providers;
helping leaders in healthcare organizations understand the issues unions exploit and providing suggestions on ways to manage those issues to reduce the associated risk;
handling corporate campaigns in the healthcare context, including defending major hospital systems from aggressive and multifaceted corporate campaigns by well-funded, national unions;
managing union campaigns—from helping employers strategize regarding bargaining unit composition to creatively designing effective communication methods and content during pre- and post-petition periods;
conducting vulnerability assessments and reviewing policies and handbooks for issues that often expose union-free employers in the healthcare industry to unfair labor practice (ULP) charges and other challenges; and
handling ULP investigations and litigating before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Our labor lawyers also have extensive experience representing unionized healthcare clients. Our significant experience with the NLRB and the various unions involved in healthcare enables us to successfully advocate for and advise our clients on a wide range of issues, including

collective bargaining for both acute and non-acute settings;
grievance processing;
labor arbitrations of all types;
strike preparation and the management of strike situations;
due diligence and successorship requirements in the labor context; and
negotiations and strategy regarding health and welfare plans.

Employee Benefits

Ogletree Deakins’ Healthcare Industry Group has broad experience in the area of benefits advice and counsel. Our attorneys are adept at guiding healthcare employers through the complex compliance regimes that they negotiate. We provide frequent and thorough guidance to numerous healthcare entities, including nonprofit, for-profit, acute, non-acute, and governmental entities. This advice involves helping clients develop and administer retirement and health and welfare benefit plans, and assisting them in their compliance with the myriad federal and state statutory and regulatory schemes, including the Internal Revenue Code, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), among others.

We also help healthcare providers meet federal and state privacy requirements, including HIPAA, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), and GINA, and we counsel our clients on designing and implementing executive compensation plans. Our attorneys frequently assist healthcare employers with transactional due diligence and advise them on integrating benefit plans following acquisitions. In addition, we have handled a wide variety of employee benefits litigation.

Immigration

With one of the largest business immigration practices in the United States, our immigration attorneys have extensive experience providing healthcare clients with comprehensive immigration representation. Our clients include for-profit and non-profit hospitals and health systems; national, regional, and local medical practices; dental practices; outpatient care centers; and other healthcare delivery providers.

Ogletree Deakins provides comprehensive assistance that goes beyond standard immigration benefits applications and compliance work. We develop strategies to meet the unique immigration challenges that healthcare industry clients often face. For example, we help our clients secure waivers of the J-1 two-year foreign residency requirement for International Medical Graduate physicians, enabling them to work in medically underserved communities or health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) and enhance the quality of care in their communities. We also identify workable immigration options to fill registered nurse, physical therapist, medical lab technologist, or any other allied healthcare professional positions.

Our immigration practice group consists of dedicated lawyers who work with healthcare clients to develop appropriate strategies to facilitate the international transfer of lifesaving employees. Our full-service immigration practice also assists clients in planning for the immigration impact of mergers and acquisitions and provides guidance on I-9 compliance and related antidiscrimination provisions.

Value

Because we know the wide variety of complex legal issues our healthcare clients face and are aware of clients’ need to control and predict costs, Ogletree Deakins has become a leader in tailoring alternative fee arrangements for healthcare providers. We routinely structure fee arrangements to meet our clients’ needs and preferences, including by offering portfolio arrangements to cover all a client’s labor and employment legal work. We are willing to engage in a dialogue on fees and budgetary issues to help our clients meet the demands of a challenging environment.