Hospice Organizations

The hospice sector is highly specialized—which means that hospice and related healthcare organizations have highly specialized legal needs. Morgan Lewis has a longstanding and robust healthcare practice focused on the hospice sector. Our lawyers have represented hospice and related healthcare organizations for more than 20 years on their most critical matters—including regulatory, government audits and investigations, whistleblower/qui tam, compliance, federal and state policy, reimbursement, fraud and abuse, government self-disclosures, and transaction, affiliations, and joint venture matters.

We understand that hospices are mission-driven organizations providing compassionate care to patients in the last stages of life as well as crucial support for patients’ families, and our legal solutions ultimately are crafted to advance that mission—whether our hospice client is nonprofit or investor-owned. We have knowledge of how a hospice interdisciplinary team works; how hospice organizations partner with hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, medical equipment suppliers, physicians, assisted living facilities, group homes, and others; and how the hospice sector manages its workforce. We call upon our deep bench of lawyers with hospice experience to solve hospice clients’ legal issues—whether the matter is large or small, routine or complex.

In addition, Morgan Lewis has relationships with many of the major consultants in the hospice and palliative care sectors, including those that furnish support for clinical eligibility audits and Additional Document Requests (ADRs), conditions of participation reviews, accreditation survey preparation, and financial operation reviews. We often partner with these consultants to help our hospice clients achieve superior results.

As frequent speakers at leading hospice industry conferences, our lawyers stay abreast of the latest trends in hospice and serve as thought leaders on changes and legal challenges in the sector, including those related to legislative, regulatory, and payment reforms.

We welcome a discussion on how we can help support your hospice organization on litigation, transactional, regulatory, and compliance matters.

Select Hospice Matters Handled by Our Lawyers: 

• Served as outside counsel to the National Partnership for Hospice Innovation, a group composed of major not-for-profit hospice organizations across the United States
• Advised hospices on Medicare and Medicaid regulatory matters, including conditions of participation, reimbursement, contracting matters, ADR, and focused medical reviews
• Represented hospices—from large chain organizations to small, single program facilities—on government fraud and abuse investigations, including those arising from whistleblower qui tam complaints
• Represented more than a dozen hospices in civil False Claims Act investigations, subpoena responses, settlement negotiations, and litigation against the US Department of Justice and state attorneys general
• Assisted hospices responding to Zone Program Integrity Contractor (ZPIC), Unified Program Integrity Contractor (UPIC), Supplemental Medical Review Contractor (SMRC), and Medicaid Integrity Contractor (MIC) audits and handled related administrative appeals, including at the federal administrative law judge and state level
• Defended hospices and staff in federal and state criminal investigations
• Represented hospices in Medicare and Medicaid payment suspension matters, often involving complex rebuttals and appeals to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and Medicare officials
• Advised hospices on complex transactions, including joint ventures, investments, asset and stock purchases, as well counseling on the establishment of palliative care programs
• Provided strategic counsel to hospices on compliance program issues, including those involving government self-disclosures
• Counseled hospice clients on contracts with hospitals and nursing facilities for General Inpatient (GIP) services, hospice inpatient bed lease or scatter bed programs, care coordination agreements, and all forms of medical director agreements