Healthcare Labor & Employment and Immigration

Representative Experience

• Advised hospitals, health systems, long-term care facilities, physician groups and rural medical practices on routine and complex human resources issues.
• Provided counsel to hospitals and other healthcare clients on state and federal wage and hour issues, including lunch breaks, travel time, flextime and overtime.
• Negotiated and drafted executive compensation agreements for hospitals, health systems, physician groups and rural medical practices, working with outside valuation consultants to establish privilege over their work.
• Counseled clients through numerous audits and compliance checks by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), including strategies to avoid potential affected class findings with the OFCCP and the Department of Labor.
• Defended healthcare entities in OSHA enforcement actions to reduce or eliminate fines for alleged health and safety violations.
• Represented healthcare clients in public policy wrongful discharge lawsuits involving alleged violations of the nursing standard of care, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), utilization review issues, emergency services, ambulance districts, physician conduct and other alleged regulatory violations.
• Defended physician practice and its shareholders in high-stakes lawsuit filed by a former employee-shareholder after client’s internal investigation established plaintiff had behaved inappropriately with female employees.
• Defended hospital in False Claim Act litigation brought by former employees.
• Represented a group of nursing homes and their management company in a Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit where the plaintiffs alleged that they missed meal breaks that had been automatically deducted from their pay.
• Defended a hospital system in a wage and hour overtime case where medical transcriptionists who worked from home alleged they were not paid an overtime rate for all time worked in excess of 40 hours per week.
• Defended a non-compete dispute on behalf of a nursing home management company where another healthcare institution attempted to prevent a manager from becoming employed by our client.
• Designed union avoidance strategies for hospitals, including supervisor training on spotting and responding to union organizing activity and modifying personnel policies.
• Represented hospital system in union organizing campaign, including related NLRB hearings.
• Assisted hospitals in medically underserved areas with hiring foreign national physicians and applying on behalf of the physicians for J-1 waivers through the Conrad 30 program. Upon approval of the waiver, we secured the physician work-authorized immigration status to begin employment with the hospital at the start of the contract period.
• Prepared nonimmigrant (temporary) and immigrant (permanent resident) petitions on behalf of healthcare providers for doctors, teaching nurses, lab technicians, biologists, microbiologists, other research scientists, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other healthcare workers.
• Prepared petitions for permanent residency for candidates who do not qualify for the traditional employment-based permanent residency process. We analyzed the candidates' credentials for alternative approaches such as EB-1 or national interest waiver.
• Counseled healthcare providers of all sizes on developing plans for hiring and retaining foreign national workers, including analyzing hiring policies and employment contracts.