Last Updated on: 28th July 2023, 07:22 pm

Today’s healthcare professionals encounter many challenges while providing high quality care to their patients. Despite their finest efforts, healthcare professionals may face lawsuits when their efforts weren’t quite enough. If this happens, healthcare providers should seek experienced legal representation to work through these complicated situations. Radiology healthcare providers and independent diagnostic testing facilities perform thousands of tests and procedures on patients throughout the year. As a result of the numerous procedures and varying degrees of health these patients face, a lawsuit may arise regarding the care that they have received. Our attorneys can help health care providers when they require legal representation and the support of a seasoned professional to help them through this stressful time.

Legal Issues for Diagnostic Imaging

Legal issues are faced on a daily basis by diagnostic testing facilities and radiology providers. The most common include:
• Compliance with HIPAA regulations
• Requirement for patient notification
• Requirements for Medicare enrollment
• Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law
• Transactional and contractual arrangements

Fraud and abuse have become widespread in several areas of business, including the health care industry. Our attorneys have extensive experience in giving legal counsel on these issues and many others.

Stark Law
Stark Law is a common issue we help our clients with and it is one of the most complicated as well as important concerns. Founded on the prohibition of physician self-referral, it’s an extremely complicated series of regulations which forbids health care providers from referring DHS which is due to Medicaid or Medicare to any entity that the health care provider has a business relationship with. The law is very complicated so our attorneys work closely with these providers to figure out whether the law is applicable to any of their current relationships. If the health care providers have questions or accidentally violate the law, consequences can be very severe. They can incur penalties that include denied payments or payment being refunded plus a $15,000 penalty for each service rendered and a $100,000 penalty if an arrangement is considered a circumvention scheme.

Compliance with HIPAA Regulations
Health care providers handle huge volumes of medical records and a lot of confidential patient information on a daily basis so it can be difficult to make sure that the stay in compliance with HIPAA as well all state privacy laws. Since HIPAA law is complicated and changes constantly, health care providers must retain legal counsel so that they can receive advice and support on many situations that could otherwise put them at risk of accidentally violating HIPAA guidelines. Our attorneys have spent many years working with many clients to make sure that they maintain their HIPAA compliance. They also advise clients regularly and have worked with many prestigious health care providers teaching the importance of interpreting and implementing these complex HIPAA regulations.

Knowledge and Experience
With our extensive experience and knowledge of the health care industry, our attorneys can provide health care providers and diagnostic facilities with the legal advice they need to deal with day to day situations and to represent them in complex medical cases. Our attorneys guarantee that when they represent a client that they will be continuously educating themselves on all the latest issues regarding a variety of health care issues including compliance. Our attorneys stay on top of current legal issues that impacting today’s health care the most and they strive to give the best possible services to our clients.

Business Structure and Planning
Health care facilities are a business and have the same needs and guidelines that they must follow as any other business. Our attorneys understand the issues that health care facilities face and have many years of experience to make sure health care facilities stay in compliance with all the rules and regulations that guide their industry. Our firm can make sure that the facility is conducting risk management assessments and determinations of whether the current business model is still feasible. Some of the issues we help facilities examine are:

• Federal and state licensing regulations
• Corporate medical practice problems
• Issues with Liability
• Relationship among Business Associates

With health care facilities, their business relationships that providers have with one another can either be beneficial or disastrous for the practice. Between contracts for employment, independent contractors, leases for equipment, agreements for professional services or another type of business agreement, there is always the possibility for disputes to arise. By using the services of our firm, our attorneys can draft agreements and guarantee regulatory compliance plus all other business regulations that need to be met and preserved.

Licensure and Credentials
To ensure against licensure and credential issues, our attorneys will work closely with independent diagnostic testing facilities and radiology providers to address any matters that may arise in their unique situations. Our attorneys will use creative and non-adversarial approaches that can defuse any potential situation before it gets out of control. We can settle these situations with as little harm to our clients as possible. Our firm understands the important of a health care provider’s reputation to be successful and to keep the trust of their patients and our attorneys do as much as possible to make sure the trust in never broken. If a patient complaint does surface, it’s imperative for health care providers to retain legal representation as soon as possible and make sure they have their attorney present when speaking with any investigator. Many investigations are settled quickly based on no merit, others can drag on for months, our attorneys will be there by their client’s side no matter what size the case.

Our attorneys can help health care providers whenever they may require legal representation, from writing contracts to representing them during a patient complaint. Our attorneys are seasoned professionals that are there to help their clients through stressful times and to help ensure a successful outcome for their case.