Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. presently
represents medical staffs and physician groups in all medical specialties.
In total, the Firm represents several thousand physicians in New York,
New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida.
Private Practice
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. has always concentrated
its representation in Health Care to the individual practicing physician
and his or her group practice. Our attorneys have negotiated employment
contracts and independent contractor agreements for physicians with hospitals
including Chief of Service contracts for most departments in the hospital’s
medical staff. The Firm specializes in negotiating physician oriented
leases for commercial space and prepares all of the corporate documents
for physician’s practices, including consultation for purchasing
and selling practice interests. In addition, the Firm has represented
numerous physician groups in their mergers with and acquisitions of other
practices. The Firm has assisted physicians by structuring Medical Partnership
Agreements between individual physicians and hospitals (including Article
28 facilities) for the construction of Health Care related facilities
and the acquisition of equipment such as a Faculty Practice Building,
an Ambulatory Care Pavilion, a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, and
an Article 28 Dialysis Unit. The Firm has negotiated agreements with Physician
Practice Management Companies and Management Service Organizations for
individual physicians and large group practices.
Integrated
Delivery Systems
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. presently represent medical staffs, medical
societies and physician groups in all medical specialties and is one of
a select group of Law Firms that is recommended by the Medical Society
of the State of New York. Some of these medical groups include the Bronx
County Medical Society and the Medical Societies of the Counties of Oneida,
Herkimer, Madison, Chenango and Oswego. The Firm has assisted one of these
medical societies in sponsoring a State approved Medicaid Managed Care
program and received a grant from the State in order to facilitate the
provision of Medicaid services. The Firm has organized Physician Hospital
Organizations, Multispecialty Physician Groups, Preferred Provider Organizations,
Independent Practice Associations, Management Service Organizations, and
Physician Hospital Organizations in order to create Integrated Health
Care Delivery Systems. In many instances, we have formed these, which
may include Hospital involvement, for the purpose of managed care contracting
with Health Maintenance Organizations.
Health Care Asset Protection Practice
A physician's practice is his or her most valuable asset, and in many
instances, their most valuable source of income. Accordingly, we take
great care to insulate not only the personal assets of a health care provider,
but also the assets of their professional practice so as to minimize,
if not totally negate, exposure to future malpractice and other creditor
claims. The Firm provides asset protection services for the health care
provider to formulate a personalized structure that will protect personal
and professional assets from creditors. Our asset protection practice
structures plans that include estate planning, tax considerations and
benefits. The Firm is experienced with all types of asset protection vehicles
including Limited Partnerships, Asset Protection Trusts, Limited Liability
Companies, GRATs, and other techniques.
Our plans are often geared to protect the Accounts Receivable
of a professional practice, and insulate expensive medical, or other equipment
and systems owned by the health care provider's practice. Our Firm handles
all manner of transactions and transfers that may affect asset protection
plans including, real property transfers and equipment transfers, as well
as helping the client obtain any necessary consents to the transfers (such
as bank consents in connection with mortgaged property, assignment consents
for leases, etc.). Our Firm also handles any annual additional transfers
of interests for asset protection vehicles as well as annual minutes as
may be necessary to help the client with respect to any gift transfers
or discounting of interest for IRS or state tax purposes.
Health Care
Corporate and General Business Practice
The Firm's corporate, general and business practices involve the representation
of medical professionals, business entrepreneurs and closely held businesses.
Members of the Firm help clients select the appropriate business
form, such as joint ventures, limited partnerships, not-for-profit corporations,
and limited liability corporations, in which to conduct their business
activities. After the decision is made, the Firm properly documents the
business form including the preparation of Articles of Incorporation,
Partnership Agreements, Corporate Minutes, By-Laws, and Employment Agreements.
Clients are guided in the proper debt and equity structure for the business
enterprise. In the case of licensed activities, the Firm obtains the appropriate
licenses. In addition, the Firm counsels clients with respect to the myriad
of business and legal concerns confronting business owners, including
tax, pension and benefit issues.
The Firm structures and executes acquisitions, stock purchase agreements,
merger and consolidation agreements, other business reorganizations, and
leveraged buyouts. Transfer of ownership of clients' businesses is also
within the realm of the Firm's expertise.
Professional
License and Privilege Proceedings (OPMC)
The Firm regularly represents health care professionals in license, application,
revocation and sanction investigations, and hearings before the NYS Office
of Professional Medical Conduct, and the Department of Education Professional
Licensing Divisions, among others. Our Firm has a long record of successes
in these proceedings and prides itself on being able to anticipate events
to favorably resolve these matters at the earliest possible stage of prosecution,
particularly through our physician attorneys.
Our physician attorneys provide the benefit of understanding the aspects
of the practice of medicine because they have actually practiced in both
the fields of medicine and law and are able to apply their practical knowledge
of the functions and realities surrounding the practice of medicine as
a trained OPMC lawyer. Our OPMC attorneys' backgrounds and experiences
provide them with a higher understanding of complex diagnosis and treatment
decisions as well as an increased ability to review patient charts and
files.
Billing,
Anti-kickback and STARK and MINI-STARK Referral Prohibition Laws
The Firm's attorneys represent and advise clients with regard to actions
concerning prohibited and restricted referrals, anti-kickback safe harbors,
and billing and fee splitting statutes and regulations. The Firm employs
its expertise in these areas to advise on and negotiate agreements for
health care professionals and groups in structuring their practices and
ancillary service arrangements and physician-hospital employment, joint
venture and independent contractor relationships.
Article
28 and Certificate of Need Formation Practice
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. structures and files all manner of CON (Certificate
of Need) applications for health care facilities or programs that must
be specially licensed or certified by the state, including surgery centers,
diagnostic and treatment centers, home health care, adult day care facilities,
enriched living, mental health facilities, methadone and detox facilities,
and nursing home acquisition and formation.
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. will file all necessary application papers,
including budget calculation, project narratives and feasibility studies,
as required by the Department of Health, and draft agreements ancillary
to the operation and formation of any CON facility such as shareholder
agreements, leases and specialized contracts for various facility employees
(CEO, CFO, and Medical Director, etc.).
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. also handles any rate appeals to increase
reimbursement and extension applications to open up a new or part time
facility.
Group
Relationships, Restrictive Covenants and Patient List Protection
The Firm's attorneys’ expertise in Health Care Law makes the Firm
especially qualified in negotiation of agreements and in conducting litigation
regarding professional group relations, dissolutions, accountings, restrictive
covenants, trade secrets, and protection of patient lists, all of which
are areas in which the Firm's success has established legal precedent.
Florida Practice
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. has attorneys licensed to practice law in
the state of Florida to better service your needs. We structure Florida
health care practices, draft employment agreements, shareholder agreements,
buy/sell agreements, and other business contracts that are consistent
with Florida law. We also deal with Florida real estate transfers and
professional discipline. Our staff includes attorneys with OPMC expertise
who can handle any Florida disciplinary matter.
Health
Care Provider Compliance Plans: Fraud & Abuse, HIPAA
Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. implements Compliance Plans and Audits for
health care providers which are consistent with The Office of Inspector
General’s guidelines for fraud and abuse and the Department of Health
and Human Services’ standards for HIPAA. The Firm believes that
the existence of a Compliance Program provides evidence that the health
care provider has made reasonable efforts to comply with the health care
fraud and abuse regulations and HIPAA’s privacy rules. The Compliance
Program demonstrates that the provider has attempted to identify potential
mistakes and has implemented a method of addressing them. It has been
our professional experience that a Compliance Audit or Plan of a Provider’s
practice can identify potential problems with respect to contractual relationships,
medical billing patterns and medical record documentation. The Firm has
created a Compliance Plan that incorporates a legal review under the applicable
fraud and abuse regulations, HIPAA, a billing and coding review, and a
medical records review that analyzes patterns of practice which, when
properly adopted by the provider entity, assists in ensuring compliance
with the law and professional ethics.
Managed
Care Contracting
The Firm represents several preferred provider organizations, independent
practice associations and physician practice partnerships, which have
negotiated contracts with many Health Maintenance Organizations, including
Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Oxford, U.S. Health Care, Aetna, Group Health
Incorporated, Sanus, Cigna, Kemper, Chubb, U.S. Life Insurance, and others.
Some of these contracts were based on a fee-for-service schedule but many
were capitated risk sharing relationships or bundled service agreements
with Health Maintenance Organizations, which included both the physicians
and hospital service components. The Firm has also created Management
Service Organizations that negotiate provider contracts and manage the
physician’s practices under these contracts.
Medicare,
Medicaid & Private Carrier Claims
The Firm represents health care providers of all specialties before the
various governing bodies of Medicaid and Medicare, including audits, fraud
(civil and criminal), over-utilization and sanction, and exclusion proceedings
involving claims of both fiscal and quality of care issues where the availability
of our physician attorneys is of substantial advantage to our clients.
We represent our professional clients before Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services (CMS) authorities regarding Medicare, the NYS Department
of Social Services, Medicaid, the NYS Dept. of Health's Bureau of Prescription
Control, OPD, OPMC, the Department of Education Professional Licensing
Divisions, various other agencies and peer review organizations. The Firm
has been responsible for several actions which have had an impact on the
manner in which the Medicaid authorities take action with regard to providers,
including actions which invalidated complete audit protocols, one involving
dropping of charges on several million dollars of alleged overpayments.
Hospital
and Third Party Payer Privileges
The Firm represents medical professionals in various states in disputes
regarding hospital staff membership and clinical privileges and before
hospital and carrier professional quality assurance and utilization bodies
and hearings, including, appeals in the applicable courts having jurisdiction.
Hospital
Consultations
The Firm has also provided representation and consultation services to
hospitals regarding various Health Care issues.
White-Collar
and Health Care (Fraud and Abuse) Criminal Litigation
The Firm represents individual physicians, dentists, pharmacists, chiropractors,
alternative medicine practitioners, podiatrists, and other licensed medical
professionals, as well as durable medical equipment suppliers, management
companies and no-fault facilities in both criminal and quasi-criminal
proceedings in the state and federal courts, including Federal False Claims
Act prosecutions, grand jury investigations, civil RICO actions and state
forfeiture proceedings.
Real Estate
Practice
The Firm handles all aspects of real estate, including purchases, sales
and leases of residential houses, cooperative apartments, condominiums,
multiple unit dwellings, liquor stores, professional offices, commercial
and industrial property, and vacant land. The Firm is involved with the
real estate transactions from their inception. Firm members draft, review
and negotiate contracts of sale for both personal residences and commercial
real estate and assist clients in arranging financing when necessary,
including both conventional mortgages and other arrangements such as purchase-money
mortgages and pension loans. Our attorneys always attend and represent
clients at real estate closings.
The Firm drafts, reviews and negotiates long term and short term commercial,
professional and residential leases and subleases. When drafting, analyzing
or negotiating a lease for professional space, the Firm always takes into
consideration the individual's profession to assist the attorney in determining
the appropriate term of a lease as well as whether specific terms and
conditions must be included or excluded from the said lease due to various
governmental proscriptions regulating the profession at hand.
The Firm structures many real estate investments as partnerships and
prepares both partnership and limited partnership agreements. The Firm
always structures real estate transactions in a manner to optimize the
positive tax consequences.
Firm members have successfully negotiated dynamic deals involving multi-million
dollar buildings with lending institutions to remove properties from foreclosure,
discharge receivers, dismiss clients from bankruptcy, and/or assign mortgages
that were in default.
Corporate
Work and Small Business Practice
The Firm represents clients in the areas of corporate minutes and documents,
buy/sell agreements for corporations, hardware stores, liquor stores,
real estate corporations, and other businesses.
Estate Planning and Administration
Several of the Firm’s practice areas include, personal tax planning,
tax planning for life insurance and charitable trusts, estate tax motivated
partnership and asset planning, restructuring, and estate administration.
General estate planning includes minimizing the costs of transferring
assets to heirs and beneficiaries. Such costs include federal estate taxes
and state inheritance taxes. The Firm assists in the transfer of assets
to the intended beneficiaries.
When probate is required, the Firm prepares the necessary court filings
and obtains the appointment of the executor or administrator of the estate.
Claims are filed, assets and accountings are prepared, and appraisals
are obtained.
For clients of modest means who are concerned about nursing home costs
or those with family members having special needs, the Firm counsels and
drafts appropriate documents to preserve assets and dignity as well as
to determine eligibility for government assistance.
Pension Administration
The ERISA Department of Lifshutz & Lifshutz, P.C. handles all areas
of pension law for physicians and other health care professionals ranging
from the calculation of pension deductions to distribution requirements,
prohibited transactions to termination of plans. We represent multi-employers
who have merged their practices due to managed health care, professional
corporations and un-incorporated medical practices.
When implementing a qualified retirement plan (defined benefit, money
purchase, profit sharing, 401(k), or target benefit plan) our ERISA Department
determines the most attractive plan for the company by analyzing their
tax situation and projecting the tax-free accumulation and distributable
benefits at retirement. Our innovative structuring serves as a means for
corporations and sole proprietors to maximize pension deductions by deferring
the payment of taxes until benefits are actually received.
We handle all aspects of administration on qualified retirement plans
from the calculations of the annual contribution, preparation of the annual
valuations, and preparation of the annual Tax Forms, to the Internal Revenue
Service, calculations of termination benefits and calculation of maximum
loan amounts. We consult our clients regarding their continued tax-favored
status with the Internal Revenue Service by discussing issues like minimum
coverage and participation, highly compensated employees, contribution
and benefit limitations, permitted disparity funding requirements, vesting,
distribution requirements, tax deductions, prohibited transactions, maximum
permissible loans, fiduciary responsibilities, reporting requirements,
and termination of plans.
We consult our clients on real estate issues as it relates to their
qualified plans. In addition, our ERISA Department has handled a vast
variety of pension audits with the Internal Revenue Service. All our pension
plans have Volume Approval from the Internal Revenue Service.
Health Care
Litigation
The Firm has an experienced and dedicated Litigation Department. It represents
individuals, as well as professional and business corporations and partnerships,
and plaintiffs and defendants alike, in a full array of actions. These
actions include, though are not limited to, restrictive covenant disputes,
health care corporate law, business and health care contracts, business
corporate law, EUO'S, real estate, fraud, defamation, and defendant's
medical malpractice.
Our attorneys are admitted to the bars of State and Federal Courts,
including the United States Supreme Court, and also litigate before the
American Arbitration Association, Board of Regents and Office of Professional
Discipline, as well as other administrative agencies where appropriate.
The Firm has a strong and experienced Appellate Practice and is fully
adept in the drafting of appellate briefs and the argument of appeals
before the Appellate Courts.
Resolution of lawsuits by way of a settlement that is favorable to the
client, or by means of an application for summary judgment, is actively
pursued where plausible. Where such options are not available, or their
prospect is premature, the Firm engages in the full panoply of pre-trial
litigation through preparation for trial, such as depositions, written
demands for discovery, motion practice, analyses of expert evaluations,
and appearances at court conferences.
The Firm has substantial trial experience and will rigorously try the
case where circumstances indicate. The Firm drafts all post-trial memoranda
of law, and other post-trial documents, and makes all appropriate post-trial
applications as well as engages in the prosecution and/or defense of any
appeal as noted above.
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Health
Care Areas of Practice
Private Practice
Integrated Delivery
Systems
Health Care
Asset Protection Practice
Health Care Corporate and
General Business Practice
Professional License and
Privilege Proceedings (OPMC)
Billing, Anti-kickback
and STARK and MINI-STARK Referral Prohibition Laws
Article 28 and Certificate
of Need Formation Practice
Group
Relationships, Restrictive Covenants and Patient List Protection
Florida Practice
Health Care
Provider Compliance Plans: Fraud & Abuse, HIPAA
Managed Care Contracting
Medicare,
Medicaid & Private Carrier Claims
Hospital and Third Party
Payer Privileges
Hospital Consultations
White-Collar and Health
Care (Fraud and Abuse) Criminal Litigation
Pension Administration
Health Care Litigation
Real Estate Practice
Corporate Work
and Small Business Practice
Estate Planning
and Administration
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