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Kirstin Smith is an associate in the Corporate Practice Group and the Healthcare Industry Group in the firm's San Diego office.

In the final days of November, the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) published three updates related to its proposed regulations regarding the review of certain healthcare transactions in California:Continue Reading OHCA Published Near-Final Draft of Regulations Requiring Notice and Review of Material Healthcare Transactions in 2024

As we anticipated in our previous blog article, the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA) made revisions to its proposed regulations following the public workshop hosted by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) in August. On October 9, 2023, HCAI and OHCA published a revised draft of the regulations. Our August blog article outlined the substance of the original draft regulations; this article summarizes the critical takeaways regarding the revisions.Continue Reading OHCA’s Revised Regulations Following Comments from Industry Stakeholders

As we previewed in our previous blog article, the California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) hosted a live public workshop on August 15, 2023 for in-person and virtual attendees to make comments and pose questions regarding the proposed regulations governing the Office of Health Care Affordability’s (OHCA) review authority for certain healthcare transactions.Continue Reading Public Workshop for OHCA’s Proposed Regulations Sparks Lively Discussion Among Industry Stakeholders

As we previewed in our blog article in March on the establishment of California’s new Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA), OHCA has issued proposed regulations available on the OHCA website, that provide anticipated details on OHCA’s advance review authority regarding certain transactions in the healthcare space.Continue Reading Update from California’s Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA): Proposed Regulations re Material Change Transactions and Pre-Transaction Review

The New Year energizes us to plan for success in the coming months. To increase the odds of meeting your business goals, we suggest taking a quick inventory of legal risks and brainstorming corrective actions for 2023. While important, legal risks may not seem urgent until a related problem impacts your business (i.e., you are subject to litigation, a business dispute erupts over unclear contract terms, an insurer or Medicare Administrative Contractor notifies you of billing/coding problems, or an employee makes a claim). Once present, legal risks can take a significant amount of time, expense, and energy to resolve that could be spent elsewhere in your business. We recommend taking a few minutes today to ask yourself the following questions:Continue Reading Are You Ready for 2023? Here’s a Quick Checklist to Reduce Legal Risks in the New Year

In response to COVID-19, medical groups are doing their best to care for patients and ensure the safety of their contracted and employed healthcare providers in the face of this new virus. Given the scope of the virus and the questions it raises for medical groups, Sheppard Mullin has prepared, “COVID-19: Legal Guide for Medical Groups,”[1] (the “Guide”) to help medical groups navigate issues related to employee protections, infection control, and reporting obligations, workforce management and related mitigation strategies, employee obligations, business and payor relationships, privacy and telehealth, Medicare changes, and strategic transactions.

This post addresses the top 10 questions from the Guide that we have received from our medical group clients concerning issues raised by COVID-19.
Continue Reading Top 10 Questions Asked By Medical Group Clients In Response To COVID-19

This COVID-19 – LEGAL GUIDE FOR MEDICAL GROUPS (“Guide”) provides a general discussion of legal issues confronting medical groups as a result of COVID-19, including employee protections, infection control, and reporting obligations, workforce management and related mitigation strategies, employee obligations, business and payor relationships, privacy and telehealth, Medicare changes, and strategic transactions.
Continue Reading COVID-19 — Legal Guide for Medical Groups