Overview
With capabilities that extend from coast to coast, Hooper, Lundy & Bookman provides counsel and support for community-based clinics, including rural health clinics (RHCs), and federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) that play critical roles in the health care delivery ecosystem. We understand the distinct cultural, economic, and practical challenges faced by those who work with underserved populations, as well as the unique regulatory issues involving the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).
HLB works closely with clinics to help them fulfill their missions of providing care to underserved and vulnerable populations. RHCs, FQHCs, mental health centers, and other community-based clinics turn to us for counsel on a wide range of matters, relying on the expertise and efficiencies developed through our almost four decades of exclusive focus on health care law.
Given their limited resources, clinics require innovative funding and care delivery approaches, whether through telemedicine, alignment with other providers and hospitals, physical and mental health integration, or other initiatives. We partner with our clients to help them secure the funding and support that ensures quality of care and expanded access to services within their communities.
Our representation of community-based clinics includes assistance with:
- 340B program registration and compliance
- Compliance with HRSA and other third-party grant rules
- Medicaid waiver programs and Medicare cost-based and prospective payment systems
- Facility, licensure, enrollment, survey, and certification
- Alignment with other rural providers, including Critical Access Hospitals, or urban systems
- Visiting nurse services
- State licensure issues and coordination with state rural health offices
- Government investigations
- Internal investigations
- Fraud and abuse, Stark Law, and anti-kickback law counseling and defense
- Compliance counseling and program development
- Telehealth opportunities
- Physician contracting, engagement, and employment
- Medical staff issues, including peer review
In addition, our attorneys, who practice collaboratively across multiple legal disciplines, are committed to health care equity and supporting the community-based clinics that play a vital role in such efforts.
Amid the COVID pandemic and in the wake of natural disasters and increasing economic disparity, clinics provide frontline response and continuing care for society’s most vulnerable individuals and families. We stand with community-based providers in a shared mission to improve health outcomes across underserved populations, and we devote our professional skills and talents to achieving the goal of quality health care for all.
