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Healthcare Litigation
The disputes healthcare businesses face that have nothing to do with clinical care.
Healthcare Disputes That Are Not Malpractice
Healthcare litigation, in the sense used here, covers the business disputes that healthcare organizations face (between physician owners, with payers and vendors, over employment and restrictive covenants, and with regulators).
Medical practices are businesses with unusually complicated ownership, compensation, and regulatory constraints layered on top of ordinary commercial pressure. A physician partnership dispute is a business divorce with licensing, referral, and patient continuity problems attached. A payer dispute is a contract claim with a reimbursement framework behind it. None of it is malpractice, and all of it is expensive.
What We Handle
Physician and owner disputes
Partnership and practice separations, compensation formulas, and buy-outs.
Payer and reimbursement disputes
Contract claims involving payers, recoupment, and network participation.
Employment and restrictive covenants
Physician and staff agreements, and the non-competes that dominate departures in this sector.
Vendor and service disputes
Equipment, billing services, practice management, and technology contracts.
Regulatory and licensing matters
Compliance issues affecting the organization rather than an individual practitioner.
Practice transactions gone wrong
Disputes arising from the sale, merger, or affiliation of a practice.
Sound familiar?
Why Practice Disputes Are Harder Than Ordinary Business Disputes
The same argument between two owners is more complicated when the business is a medical practice.
Patients cannot be paused
The practice has continuing obligations to patients regardless of what the owners are doing. Continuity of care constrains every option.
Referral and reimbursement rules
Ownership, compensation, and referral arrangements sit inside a regulatory framework that limits how disputes can be settled.
Restrictive covenants are central
Physician non-competes are more heavily negotiated and more consequential than in most sectors, because the asset walking out is the patient relationship.
Records and privacy obligations
Patient records carry their own duties, and a dispute over access to them can become its own regulatory problem.
Who does this work
Jordan W Gerheim
Healthcare business litigation alongside commercial, employment, and regulatory work for organizations in regulated industries.
Robert J. Riccio
The ownership, compensation, and tax structuring questions underneath most practice disputes.
Cost and related pages
Want a number for your situation?
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the same as medical malpractice defense?
No. Malpractice and standard-of-care claims are handled under Professional Liability, which covers defense of physicians, nurses, and healthcare providers including proceedings before licensing boards. This page covers the business disputes a healthcare organization faces (between owners, with payers, with vendors, and over employment).
Our physician partnership is breaking up. Where do we start?
With the governing documents and the compensation formula, and with a plan for patient continuity that both sides can live with while the rest is argued about. Practice separations that damage patient care damage the value both sides are fighting over, which makes early interim arrangements more important here than in most business divorces.
A payer is recouping payments made months ago. Do we have to accept it?
Not necessarily. Recoupment is governed by the payer agreement and the applicable framework, and both the basis and the process are frequently challengeable. The deadlines for disputing are often short and buried in the contract, so this is worth acting on rather than absorbing.
Are physician non-competes enforceable in Alabama?
They are examined the same way other restrictive covenants are (scope, duration, geography, and legitimate business interest) with the added complication that patient access and continuity of care are genuine considerations. They are frequently more negotiable at the drafting stage than physicians assume, and more contestable at the enforcement stage than practices assume.
Related Insights
Business Problems, Not Clinical Ones
Book a Risk-Free Strategy Session. Send us the operating agreement, the payer contract, or the physician agreement and we will read it first.