Stacey has experience representing buyers and sellers in these types of transactions. Most recently Dinsmore represented a regional health system acquiring two specialty physician practices. We advised the client through all aspects of the transaction, including drafting and negotiating the asset purchase agreement, various management agreements, clinical services agreements, physician employment agreements, and affiliated real estate transactions.

Stacey completed a comprehensive effectiveness review of the enterprise’s compliance program and practices, from corporate governance, audit and monitoring, compliance education, communication and documentation, and corrective action plans. The review compared the enterprise’s policies, practices, and documentation to the OIG’s standards for an effective compliance program. The final report included recommendations and practical next steps for how to improve the enterprise’s overall compliance processes.

The 10^th District Court of Appeals reversed a decision of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, which affirmed the State Medical Board of Ohio and remanded the case back to the board for further proceedings. The court determined that the board did not act in accordance with law when it imposed a “stayed” license suspension without affording our client, a physician, an opportunity to be heard, and without determining the “threshold” question of whether, when the three day examination was ordered, the board had “reason to believe” the physician was impaired “because of habitual or excessive use of drugs or alcohol.” Upon remand by the court, the board chose to take no action against the physician and dismissed the case.

The Franklin County Court of Common Pleas reversed a decision of the State Medical Board of Ohio which suspended a physician assistant’s license after she tested positive on a single EtG test, notwithstanding four years of sobriety demonstrated through negative alcohol screens and direct monitoring from multiple physicians and the Ohio Physician’s Health Program. The court found placing primacy reliance on an EtG test is inappropriate and scientifically unsupported at this time, as the EtG test is highly sensitive to even inadvertent, low-level alcohol exposure, which can provide an unreliable result. The court found that the board erred by relying on the EtG test alone and reversed the decision of the board.

We served as bond counsel for Bon Secours Mercy Health, Inc., one of the nation’s 20 largest health care systems, with respect to the issuance of several series of bonds totaling $1.16 billion in aggregate principal amount. As bond counsel, we assisted with each step of the financing process, which involved the public offering of municipal tax-exempt and corporate taxable bonds involving issuers in three states. The bonds were issued in April of 2020 and enabled the financing or refinancing of health care facilities in Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia while also contributing to the re-opening of the capital markets for health care borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These combined bond deals were selected by The Bond Buyer as its 2020 Deal of the Year in the Health Care Financing Category.

After securing a provisional license to cultivate medicinal cannabis, our client sought to amend its original application plans after a local industrial park association retracted prior structural approval for facility plans. The Ohio Department of Commerce rejected proposed amendments to the applicant’s facility plans and moved to revoke the client’s provisional license. We negotiated with the association and the department and resolved the matter through revised structural plans that satisfied association bylaws, as well as other corrective actions and remedies approved by the department by way of a consent agreement and dismissal of the proposed revocation action. The client has since been granted a full license to cultivate and is successfully operating in northeast Ohio.

On behalf of a multi-office Ohio addiction treatment center, we handled the fraud and abuse investigation and subsequent negotiations with federal authorities who were reviewing the client’s receipt of free drug screening equipment from one of the largest laboratories in the country.  We successfully persuaded the United States Department of Justice to decline bringing criminal or civil charges, and the matter was eventually resolved with minor civil penalties paid to the United States Department of Health and Human Services / Office of Inspector General and avoidance of any administrative sanctions, including exclusion from participation in public health programs.

We advised a nursing home facility and its related entities through their objection to two related Certificate of Need applications filed by another nursing home facility. After the Certificate of Need applications had been filed, we filed objections with the Ohio Department of Health to challenge the merit of the applications, and a hearing was granted. During the course of the administrative hearings, the parties reached a confidential settlement. The hearings were subsequently dismissed.

Dinsmore represented a home health care company throughout an investigation by the Ohio Attorney General relating to alleged criminal actions of employees. When the investigation ended in termination of the home health company’s Medicaid provider agreement, Dinsmore represented the client in the appeal of the termination order in a three-day public hearing.

Represented The Wallick Companies and its affiliates in the sale of a $12,500,000 nursing facility and independent living facility located in Springfield, Ohio.

We represented a medical practice in a case in Northern Kentucky in which one of the practice’s former physicians was contending that he was owed several hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional compensation associated with his departure from the practice. The case culminated in a bench trial. At the conclusion of the bench trial proceedings, the judge agreed with our arguments associated with the interpretation of the pertinent contracts, and dismissed all of the Plaintiff’s claims.

Representation of health care insurers seeking enforcement of their contractual subrogation rights in tort litigation.

We represented a regional hospital in physician peer review proceedings. The hospital received complaints regarding a physician, and it had to proceed according to its Medical Staff Bylaws, including holding a hearing before a peer review hearing committee. We counseled the hospital throughout the process, ensuring compliance with the Health Care Quality Improvement Act, state licensure and reporting regulations, and the Medical Staff Bylaws. Any violations during the peer review process could have resulted in the hospital and participating reviewing physicians losing civil immunities and facing potential liability. The hospital completed the hearing and peer review process with no compliance issues.

Dinsmore & Shohl represented a church whose control of a hospital was challenged by community residents in a class action.  The case was settled.