Tony Brett represents hospitals and other health service providers in North Carolina and elsewhere. He provides an overall industry perspective and an understanding of the multifaceted issues confronting health care providers, including regulatory compliance, business planning needs and administrative issues.
He has extensive experience in all aspects of hospital operations, including contractual arrangements with physicians, operational policies, and revenue management systems. Tony handles both the termination of management contracts for hospitals and the negotiation of such contracts for hospitals.
His ability to customize advice for each client, depending on its particular market conditions, helps clients identify the business options that are feasible to create a workable plan to seek optimal results on each project. Tony also represents health care providers in litigation arising from a variety of issues including governmental program reimbursement, compliance investigations, medical staff corrective action and regulatory requirements.
Professional Activities
- American Health Lawyers Association
- Health Care Compliance Association
- North Carolina Society of Health Care Attorneys
- North Carolina Bar Association: Health Law (Section Council, 1988-91) and Litigation Sections
Honors and Awards
- Chambers USA Ranked Lawyer, Healthcare, North Carolina, 2013 – Present
- Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America (BL Rankings) in the fields of Administrative / Regulatory Law, Health Care Law, Litigation – Health Care, 1991 – Present
Experience
Any result the lawyer or law firm may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.
- Handles Stark, Anti-Kickback Statute, Civil Monetary Penalties Act and False Claims Act investigations. Recently resolved a Stark self-referral disclosure with potential $14 million exposure for $342,000.
- Has successfully defended physicians’ challenges to Medical Staff corrective action in state and federal courts.
- Handles various corporate governance matters for nonprofit healthcare organizations, including coordinating an investigation into an organization’s executive team for possible misconduct. Resolved a governance stalemate in a membership LLC of two healthcare organizations with equal control.
- Handles HIPAA compliance and investigations, including a recent suspected breach requiring forensic computer analysis to determine whether a breach had actually occurred.
- Negotiated and documented transfer of control of a hospital to a health system in exchange for the health system’s guarantee of the hospital’s financial obligations and a guarantee to continue all core services for a decade.
