Principal
Chair, Health Care Practice Group
Phone: 717-612-6027
Fax: 717-731-1985
psanders@postschell.com
Represents clients on both substantive and procedural aspects of health facility regulation, such as licensure and certification surveys, compliance, Medicare/Medicaid, payment matters, HIPAA, fraud and abuse, False Claims Act investigations, and voluntary disclosures.
Paula G. Sanders is a Principal and Chair of the Firm's Health Care Practice Group, where she focuses her national practice exclusively on health care law. She represents clients on both substantive and procedural aspects of health facility regulation, such as licensure and certification surveys, compliance, Medicare/Medicaid, payment matters, HIPAA, fraud and abuse, False Claims Act investigations, and voluntary disclosures. She works closely with clients who find themselves in the cross-hair of government focus and assists with real-time responses to immediate jeopardy events and other crises. She vigorously advocates for her clients before multiple regulatory and law enforcement agencies and is especially successful at coordinating an integrated response to her clients’ issues.
Ms. Sanders represents national, regional, and single-site proprietary, non-profit and governmental providers across the full continuum of care. Her post-acute care clients include continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs), long-term care facilities, personal care homes, assisted living providers, hospices, home health agencies, rehabilitation providers, and adult daycare centers. She is also actively involved with hospitals and health systems, psychiatric and substance abuse specialty hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, dialysis providers, pediatric care providers, and mental health and developmental disability providers. In addition to institutional providers, Ms. Sanders also advises licensed professionals, management companies, billing companies, and trade associations and serves as general counsel to a reciprocal risk retention group that insures nursing homes, personal care homes, and adult day care providers.
Her practice is both pro-active and crisis intervention-based. Ms. Sanders assists her clients with transactional and strategic matters such as changes of ownership (CHOWs), contract negotiations, and provider-based determinations. She routinely develops preemptive programs for clients in auditing, monitoring, and other issues, while also providing defense assistance to a wide range of providers on matters ranging from Medicare and Medicaid audits to program integrity, voluntary disclosures, and licensure terminations.
Ms. Sanders has developed a special practice working with nursing homes that have been placed on the Federal Special Focus Facility (SFF) list. Through her efforts, several facilities have graduated from the SFF list, avoiding termination and closure. Ms. Sanders has negotiated Systems Improvement Agreements (SIAs) with state agencies and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide her clients with additional time to improve their internal systems and the quality of care they provide.
Ms. Sanders is a member of the legal committee of the American Health Care Association (AHCA), where she currently chairs the Survey Subcommittee. She is also on the national legal committee of LeadingAge. Ms. Sanders was named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer for Health Care on multiple occasions, and regularly speaks and presents on health care topics to state, national, and international audiences.
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