Industry

Healthcare

Full-Service Counsel Across the Healthcare Spectrum

Every day, Sheppard guides healthcare’s largest and most innovative companies on how to survive and thrive in today’s healthcare environment.

We support all healthcare sectors with actionable intelligence informed by our unmatched experience, relationships and business knowledge.

Charting the Future of Healthcare Law

Our mission is to transform and improve healthcare by sharing what works and what doesn’t, by integrating legal analysis with informed strategy and tactics and by being in the trenches with our clients every day.

Law360 named us the best health law practice five times in the last decade because we are able to lead the largest and most transformative, game-changing projects for providers, payors, investors and disruptors.

Our deal, regulatory, litigation/enforcement and specialty lawyers provide an integrated, sophisticated, one-firm solution or can act as targeted expert co-counsel.

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Areas of Focus

Sheppard provides end-to-end counsel for health plans, from formation and state licensing to ongoing compliance, strategic growth, transactions and orderly wind-downs when needed. Our team offers strong federal program expertise, including Medicare Advantage, Medicaid managed care, Medicare Part D and Affordable Care Act compliance.

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Our industry-leading healthcare knowledge and private equity experience maximize value through compressed timelines, competitive processes and regulatory challenges. Private equity clients turn to us to structure complex healthcare transactions that strategically address compliance and risk while advancing long-term growth objectives.

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Sheppard provides comprehensive counsel for physicians and medical groups navigating corporate, regulatory and operational challenges in a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. Our lawyers are trusted advisors, delivering responsive, practical guidance across specialties, markets and practice models.

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Sheppard provides strategic counsel to healthcare organizations and technology companies adopting AI, expanding telemedicine and managing data-driven care. Clients value our clear, practical guidance in a fast-moving environment, empowering innovators to launch, scale and safeguard digital health solutions with confidence.

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We partner with clients to lead and close healthcare transactions with speed, certainty and a comprehensive understanding of all related business and regulatory issues. Named a Top 10 healthcare M&A firm by Healthcare M&A News in 2025, we have completed more than 120 health plan affiliations, 140 hospital M&A and joint venture transactions, and dozens of private equity transactions in recent years for clients ranging from regional hospitals and plans to the largest health systems and private investors in the nation.

When government scrutiny intensifies, leading healthcare organizations turn to Sheppard for defense in complex False Claims Act (FCA) litigation. With experience in over 100 FCA matters and a team that includes more than a dozen former Assistant U.S. Attorneys, we deliver innovative strategies and proven results. We routinely secure declinations and favorable outcomes in cases involving kickbacks, upcoding, HCC coding, services not rendered, Stark Law and Medicare Part D fraud.

Our team has deep experience navigating the federal and state healthcare regulatory frameworks, allowing us to identify and assess the risks, limitations and opportunities these frameworks can pose to both your proposed and current business, clinical and operational workflows—regardless of your role in the healthcare industry. Our team is routinely lauded for our pragmatic, common-sense approach to overcoming perceived and actual regulatory hurdles to help you achieve your goals.

Sheppard advises health systems, providers and investors on complex healthcare and real estate transactions nationwide. We structure and execute joint ventures, acquisitions, financing (including sale-leasebacks), M&A and developments that navigate Stark, Anti-Kickback, tax and other regulatory constraints. Our integrated healthcare real estate team delivers efficient, compliant and commercially sound solutions that support growth, protect mission and drive long-term value.

Our post-acute care practice has proven expertise across the full continuum of care including skilled nursing, assisted living, senior housing, home health and hospice. We represent REITs, health systems, private equity sponsors and multi-facility operators in complex transactions that require regulatory fluency and real estate precision. Our integrated team closes deals quickly while preserving enterprise value.

When the stakes are high, healthcare organizations trust us to protect their interests with bold advocacy and strategic solutions. Our team’s decades of courtroom and arbitration experience, combined with deep industry insight, enable us to resolve all types of disputes, from commercial disputes and business torts to regulatory enforcement actions and sensitive employment matters. We relentlessly pursue your goals, delivering creative, practical solutions that safeguard your future.

Sheppard represents companies facing federal and state antitrust investigations and litigation. We provide pragmatic and strategic counseling to get transactions cleared and investigations closed quickly by antitrust enforcers. We help healthcare companies complete mergers, joint ventures, provider-network collaborations and other strategic initiatives while reducing antitrust exposure—structuring deals, managing HSR filing obligations and navigating clients through the antitrust review process, including the evolving landscape of state antitrust enforcement regimes.

Accelerating transformation and capturing value while minimizing risk. We are a proven leader for value-based arrangements, having completed more downstream global risk projects than any U.S. law firm. With our extensive real-world experience, clients can turn innovation into durable revenue and achieve better population health while minimizing enforcement risk.

We counsel leading healthcare organizations and technology businesses in state, federal and global health data privacy laws. We help design and implement health information technology and data strategies and build privacy and security compliance programs under HIPAA and related state laws, including developing policies and procedures, product counseling, audits and risk assessments, compliance training, licensing and other types of agreements, and security incident readiness and response. We also manage web tracking risk and guide incident response, including investigations by federal and state regulators.

Our award-winning healthcare privacy team includes a former DHS Deputy GC, an HHS/OCR investigator, a data breach book author, a former FBI Special Agent, EU data protection experts and IAPP certified lawyers. Our team provides end-to-end support for data privacy and cybersecurity needs, from proactive privacy and data security counselling to incident response, regulatory investigations and civil litigation.

We offer one of the nation’s most experienced hospital-focused legal teams, advising hospitals and health systems of every size. Sheppard combines decades of regulatory and transactional experience with a practical understanding of how hospitals and health systems operate, compete and deliver care in today’s complex healthcare environment.

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Sheppard’s Women in Healthcare Leadership Collaborative (WHLC) is a national leadership initiative dedicated to supporting women who are currently in or advancing into leadership positions within the healthcare and life sciences industries. WHLC is an inclusive group that welcomes and benefits from the participation of professionals of all genders who are committed to supporting women leaders and addressing gender disparities in leadership.

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Experience

Sheppard represents healthcare's leading organizations on high-stakes, transformative matters. Learn more about our experience helping shape the industry through our work with health plans, hospitals and health systems, physician and medical groups, healthcare private equity investors and healthcare technology innovators.

Health Plans

Advised on an innovative payor-provider alignment transaction to launch a jointly owned Medicare Advantage plan—pairing next-generation care offerings with the provider assuming downstream global risk to align incentives, improve outcomes, and lower costs amid a challenging regulatory and competitive landscape.
Led the multifaceted, comprehensive enterprise-wide reorganization of a large not-for-profit health plan, modernizing governance and operations and creating a scalable health technology business to commercialize artificial intelligence-enabled pharmacy and technology capabilities through strategic co-founder investments.
Served as regulatory counsel in a $350 million acquisition of an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Exchange and Medicare-related services business, expanding the buyer’s government programs footprint by adding an established line of business, a recognized brand and a statewide provider network.
Helped health plans run and grow Medicare Advantage and Part D programs with fewer surprises and stronger outcomes. We delivered multi-state integrations and contract consolidations after major acquisitions, successfully appealed application denials through administrative review, and supported launches of joint-venture plans and Employer Group Waiver Plan offerings. We also provide day-to-day guidance on bids, Special Needs Plans, marketing, audits, Star Ratings, medical loss ratio, network adequacy, and pharmacy benefit manager contracting.
Aligned a four-hospital system, the state’s largest independent physician group, and a Blue Plan to launch the state’s first Medicare and Medicaid population health risk contract and a commercial accountable care organization—driving $60 million in additional first-year profitability through an HCC RAF coding and quality program.
Represented a startup company backed in obtaining its health maintenance organization license to offer Medicare Advantage plans.

Hospital and Health Systems

Orchestrated concurrent expansions for an academic health system, integrating acquisitions and affiliations to strengthen market presence and capacity, resulting in an additional 2,000 beds and eight hospitals and related assets.
Advised on a $4 billion ambulatory surgery center company acquisition across multiple states, obtaining licensing, certificate of need (CON), regulatory and antitrust approvals and navigating associated corporate restructuring, real estate, divestiture and litigation matters.
Advised an academic health system on a landmark affiliation with a financially distressed public hospital district, using a Joint Powers Authority structure to keep essential services available and reduce bankruptcy risk.
Secured a landmark $45 million settlement in a dispute over a failed hospital acquisition, ending years of litigation, providing vital capital and clearing the path for the hospital’s future.
Transformed distressed healthcare assets into strategic value through a coordinated restructuring that navigated parallel bankruptcy, regulatory and public scrutiny issues—showcasing cross disciplinary leadership.
Negotiated a system payer renewal that avoided broad coverage disruption and aligned patient facing communications underscoring deep experience in managed care contracting and stakeholder engagement to secure reliable access for communities.

Physician and Medical Groups

Served as lead counsel to build and operationalize a physician services platform from the ground up, including entity formation, physician compensation and equity incentive design. After launch, led healthcare regulatory execution for a $2.49 billion sale of a 70 percent equity interest to a national strategic partner.
Led the acquisition of a national urology management services organization to support expansion of physician-owned practices and ambulatory surgery centers. The transaction brought growth capital and operating scale to broaden access to high-value specialty care, strengthen clinical coordination and support cancer care improvement initiatives—while aligning governance, contracting and regulatory considerations for efficient integration.
Advised on a series of strategic affiliations and management services organization acquisitions totaling more than $600 million across multiple states. These transactions expanded a physician-led oncology platform designed to preserve independent practice while adding the scale needed to support innovation, clinical research and consistent operating standards—helping practices grow without losing clinical focus or operational control.
Led the sell-side transaction for a scaled gastroenterology management services platform, coordinating corporate structuring, diligence, licensing and change-of-ownership approvals to keep the deal on track. We also navigated payer and provider contracting, privacy and compliance requirements to reduce closing risk. From formation through add-on acquisitions, we served as ongoing outside counsel—supporting growth with practical, integrated guidance.
Represented a more than 500 physician medical group in its affiliation with a large non-profit health system under California’s 1206(l) medical foundation model and negotiated the related Professional Services Agreement with an incentive-aligned compensation methodology. Helped create an integrated delivery system structure that supported coordinated care, quality improvement and operational alignment while navigating corporate practice of medicine, fraud and abuse and reimbursement considerations.
Represented an orthopedic surgery medical group in an ASC joint venture with a non-profit health system to develop two de novo ambulatory surgery centers. Enabled physicians to invest alongside the health system and transition appropriate cases to a lower-cost outpatient setting, expanding capacity, improving patient access and experience and supporting efficient, high-quality surgical care.
Represented a private equity sponsor in the platform acquisition of an orthopedic surgery practice and continued as outside general counsel for operational legal matters and transaction counsel for add-on growth. Helped build one of the longest-tenured integrated orthopedic platforms, expanding from 15 physicians in one state to over140 physicians across 42 clinics in five states, including support for value-based care initiatives (bundles/risk-sharing), contracting, governance and regulatory compliance.
Assisted a large medical group in developing and launching a Peer Review and Fair Hearing program and advised on ongoing physician employment, peer review and medical board/NPDB reporting matters. Established defensible processes that promote patient safety and quality, reduce employment and credentialing risk, and support consistent documentation and compliant reporting in sensitive performance and disciplinary matters.
Represent a medical group that over the past decade has grown from a few physicians in one location to over 200 physicians across 70 locations, including 10 affiliated surgery centers. In our role as outside general counsel, we’ve represented the medical group in practice acquisitions, the formation of surgery center joint ventures, litigation matters and regulatory filings.
Represented a large health system in its acquisition of over 250 surgery centers across more than 30 states, including healthcare regulatory due diligence and state and federal regulatory filings.
Counseled medical groups—from single-specialty to large multi-specialty organizations—on revamping physician employment agreements and documenting complex compensation models. Improved clarity and consistency across contracting, strengthened compliance with applicable regulatory frameworks, and reduced risk of disputes and employment-related litigation by aligning compensation terms, duties, governance and termination mechanics with medical group operations.

Healthcare Private Equity

Led a complex $8.9 billion national healthcare merger, delivering seamless closing through strategic structuring, comprehensive diligence and antitrust navigation, while supporting a new joint venture to drive integrated care and growth in commercial markets.
Counseled a private equity health plan partnership to launch a next generation primary care platform, securing approvals under emerging state oversight regimes—illustrating our command of healthcare convergence and novel regulatory frameworks reshaping market dynamics.
Advised a global private equity firm on the acquisition and regulatory workstreams for a $1.2 billion hospice platform transaction. Negotiated a favorable resolution of significant Medicare hospice cap liability, including a special indemnity and a multiple-based earn-out adjustment.
Advised a healthcare-focused private equity firm on a majority growth recapitalization that advanced innovation and market expansion in minimally invasive interventional spine care. This investment enabled continued clinical studies, accelerated next-generation product development and supported U.S. commercial growth for a spine implant used in over 14,000 procedures—reinforced by strong clinical data and robust trial outcomes.
Advised on a landmark private equity exit involving one of the largest gastroenterology management platforms in the Northeast, spanning over 40 locations, 24 ambulatory surgery centers, over 250 providers and more than 1,250 employees. The transaction highlights growing investor demand for scaled, specialty care platforms and demonstrates the complexity and value of building integrated organizations that improve access to high-quality, cost-effective healthcare at scale.
Supported a large growth equity fund in the formation and build-out of a national network of community oncology practices from formation through rapid multi state expansion and multiple sponsor transitions. We built the corporate and healthcare regulatory foundation, including advising on initial structure, management arrangements, equity commitments, then executed key affiliations and supporting the platform in a multi-disciplinary holistic approach. We also delivered regulatory execution for complex growth, including diligence, licensing and compliance for the acquisition and integration of numerous significant practices across multiple states, including tuck-in transactions folding several practices into existing affiliate practices, crafting compliant governance and compensation structures within those expanding organizations. As the network expanded into adjacent specialties, we advised on a national urology group acquisition, structured joint venture arrangements to support scale and provide ongoing regulatory counsel for day-to-day operations.

Healthcare Technology & Innovation (AI, Digital Health, Health Tech)

Defended an artificial intelligence software company against state attorney general allegations under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act tied to product marketing. Achieved a first-of-its-kind resolution for artificial intelligence marketing that imposed limited compliance and audit rights, with no admission of wrongdoing and no payment—reducing risk while allowing the business to keep operating and selling.
Enabled a national value-based care platform to scale physician partnerships by providing ongoing regulatory counsel on reimbursement rules, fraud and abuse compliance and accountable care organization requirements under the Medicare Shared Savings Program. Advise on strategic ventures and day-to-day policy reviews to support compliant expansion from fee-for-service to value-based care.
Secured dismissal of the majority of claims in a putative class action following a data breach for a leading electronic medical record software provider, including all claims under seven states’ laws. The outcome reduced litigation exposure, protected business momentum, and strengthened the defense position for future privacy and security disputes.
Provided privacy and data security counsel, including developing time-sensitive consent frameworks to support compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and implementing practical controls as privacy and marketing requirements evolve.
Advised a health software developer on healthcare regulatory compliance and negotiated commercial distribution agreements for a behavioral modification software product with a national managed care organization.
Represented a healthcare company focused on remote patient monitoring (RPM) and Chronic Care Management (CCM) on regulatory compliance related to developing a joint venture structure and supporting substantial expansion of operations into multiple states.
Represented a healthcare technology company in employment litigation brought by a former senior human resources executive following a reorganization, alleging age discrimination and retaliation. Achieved partial summary judgment and negotiated a favorable settlement that significantly reduced the initial multimillion-dollar demand.
Developed and assisted with comprehensive data privacy and security compliance programs, including policy drafting, implementation and ongoing training.
Advised multiple health systems, providers, and other HIPAA regulated companies on use of tracking technologies on websites including assessments, support on remediation, and defense in civil litigation and regulatory investigations.
Advised an AI-powered and telehealth-enabled healthcare company focusing on untreated behavioral health and chronic conditions on all privacy and cybersecurity considerations, including GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and related state laws.
Advised multiple healthcare providers on response and investigation to data breaches, including related state and federal inquiries and litigation defense.
Supported launch and compliance of groundbreaking healthcare applications and AI systems, including clinical rule-based tools, diagnostic support systems, digital therapy programs, and medication adherence and care coordination apps.
Led joint venture, redefining AI in global healthcare and financing partnerships between Middle East and North America.

State Healthcare Transaction Laws

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Healthcare

Charting the Future of Healthcare Law

Our mission is to transform and improve healthcare by sharing what works and what doesn’t, by integrating legal analysis with informed strategy and tactics and by being in the trenches with our clients every day.

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Areas of Focus

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Experience

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Related Capabilities

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Areas of Focus

Experience

Related Capabilities

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Healthcare

Charting the Future of Healthcare Law Our mission is to transform and improve healthcare by sharing what works and what doesn’t, by integrating legal analysis with informed strategy and tactics and by being in the trenches with our clients every day.

Healthy AI: 2025 Year in Review

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Areas of Focus

Health Plans

Healthcare Private Equity

Physician and Medical Groups

Healthcare Technology & Innovation: Digital Health, AI and Telemedicine

Strategic Transactions

Healthcare False Claims Act Investigations and Litigation

Healthcare Regulatory and Compliance

Healthcare Real Estate

Post-Acute Care

Healthcare Litigation and Government Enforcement Actions

Healthcare Antitrust

Value-Based and Global Risk Arrangements

Health Information Privacy

Data Privacy and Security

Hospitals and Health Systems

Women in Healthcare Leadership Collaborative (WHLC)

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Experience

Representative Matters

Resources

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Related Capabilities

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Healthy AI: 2025 Year in Review

Areas of Focus

Health Plans

Healthcare Private Equity

Physician and Medical Groups

Healthcare Technology & Innovation: Digital Health, AI and Telemedicine

Strategic Transactions

Healthcare False Claims Act Investigations and Litigation

Healthcare Regulatory and Compliance

Healthcare Real Estate

Post-Acute Care

Healthcare Litigation and Government Enforcement Actions

Healthcare Antitrust

Value-Based and Global Risk Arrangements

Health Information Privacy

Data Privacy and Security

Hospitals and Health Systems

Women in Healthcare Leadership Collaborative (WHLC)

Experience

Representative Matters

Resources

Related Capabilities

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Charting the Future of Healthcare Law

Our mission is to transform and improve healthcare by sharing what works and what doesn’t, by integrating legal analysis with informed strategy and tactics and by being in the trenches with our clients every day.