Scott R. Simpson

My focus

Healthcare Transactions

I’ve worked with for-profit and nonprofit companies in connection with the merger, purchase, and sale of healthcare providers and companies, serving as corporate and healthcare regulatory counsel. I’ve assisted in the completion of several multi-jurisdiction transactions, which often pose a wide variety of state and local regulatory challenges. I help our clients efficiently and expeditiously manage the due diligence phase of the deal and draft the various documents that embody the deal, from the letter of intent phase through the closing of the transaction.

Fraud and Abuse and Compliance

A significant focus of my practice involves helping our healthcare clients navigate the thicket that is the federal fraud and abuse laws, including the Stark Law, Anti-Kickback Statute, and the law imposing civil monetary penalties for beneficiary inducement and their state analogs. I am often asked to review a proposed arrangement as part of a healthcare company’s internal compliance efforts to assist in the defense of a qui tam lawsuit or to help craft a response to a government inquiry (as through a subpoena or civil investigative demand). I also support healthcare companies and their compliance professionals with more general compliance investigations and regularly advise on self-disclosure obligations to federal and state agencies and provide assistance in response to government audits.

Looking ahead

As the industry emerges from what was hopefully the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think deal volume will continue to be relatively high as healthcare providers and companies seek to capitalize on growth opportunities in the market and find economies of scale in the pursuit of more efficient operations and value-based care benchmarks. It will be interesting to see how the recent uptick in antitrust enforcement activity affects these transactions, particularly where one party to the deal is struggling financially. Also, labor supply will continue to be an issue, which will further drive interest in telehealth and mobile technologies and may result in increased pressure on state agencies to expand the scope of practice for advanced practice providers. Lastly, there will surely be increased enforcement activity in connection with the various government programs enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those programs were often hastily crafted with significant reliance on subregulatory guidance, making administration challenging for the government and compliance difficult for the industry.

Publications

• “The Potential Demise or Reform of the Stark Law in an Era of Value-Based Reimbursement,” AHLA Weekly, March 23, 2018
• “Outsourcing Care: Medical Tourism is the Outsourcing of the American Operating Room,” 238 New York Law Journal 11 (2007) (co-authored with Michele Masucci)
• “Report Card: Grading the Country’s Response to Columbine,” 53 Buffalo Law Review 415 (2005)