abiLIVE Webinars

Hosted by the Consumer Bankruptcy Committee This webinar will discuss how new Bankruptcy Student Loan Management Programs are helping debtors solve their student loan issues. The webinar will cover the issues affecting debtors and their student loans as well as the solutions and tools the courts are implementing.

Hosted by the Commercial Fraud Committee The webinar panel, comprised of bankruptcy lawyers, a panel bankruptcy trustee and a financial advisor, will delve into what occurs when an individual debtor files bankruptcy and fails to properly disclose their assets. The discussion will include methods of investigating and discovering hidden assets and the means by which a trustee can successfully recover the assets for the bankruptcy estate. The panel will also address defenses that a debtor may raise, including exemptions, tenants by the entirety, or business assets transferred to trusts.

The automotive industry has been relatively stable since the crisis ten years ago. But there are disruptions within the supplier base as platforms change and technology evolves. With declining volumes and the stress of trade wars, are we approaching another downturn in the automotive industry? Are we better prepared to manage through potential automotive distress now than ten years ago, or have supplier operations and financing structures and agreements become more complex? This webinar will explore these issues and more.

The automotive industry has been relatively stable since the crisis ten years ago. But there are disruptions within the supplier base as platforms change and technology evolves. With declining volumes and the stress of trade wars, are we approaching another downturn in the automotive industry? Are we better prepared to manage through potential automotive distress now than ten years ago, or have supplier operations and financing structures and agreements become more complex? This webinar will explore these issues and more.

Panelists will discuss ethical issues relating to due diligence and debtor and creditor actions online as well as practice pointers for engaging in social media.

There have been a number of recent bankruptcy filings by large and high profile healthcare providers, such as the filings of Verity Health System of California, Inc., in Los Angeles (the second largest hospital bankruptcy case in American history), Hospital Acquisition LLC and 25 related debtors d/b/a Promise Health and American Academic Health System (Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher Hospital in Philadelphia) in Wilmington, Delaware, and Astria Health in Yakima, Washington. Additionally, EmpowerHMS owned or helped manage a rural hospital empire that encompassed 18 facilities across eight states. After funding from a controversial lab-billing venture dried up, 12 of the hospitals entered bankruptcy and eight closed their doors. There has also been a steady stream of lower profile cases, including Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Illinois, Penobscot Valley Hospital in Maine, and Springfield Hospital, Inc., in Vermont, and it appears that there are more filings in store. The webinar will discuss (i) the reasons for this growing trend of healthcare cases, (ii) the unique challenges in those cases, which involve not only the typical payment of creditor claims, but also the care of patients, (iii) the particular issues that arise uniquely in this class of cases, including jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid Programs, treatment of provider agreements, the intersection of nonprofit law and bankruptcy law, and treatment of medical malpractice claims, and (iv) whether this trend of healthcare filings will continue.

We will take a deeper dive into some of the more interesting and unique local rules that practitioners should be aware of when completing assets sales in various districts. The panelists will also discuss the need for local rules, differences across jurisdictions, and the process for revisions and implementation.

On May 7, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “CFPB”) issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking related to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the “FDCPA”). The CFPB has proposed several updates to the FDCPA, including: regulations regarding the use of emails and text messages; exemptions from the FDCPA for limited content messages; limitations on the number of telephone calls a debt collector can make per week; model notices and disclosures; and prohibitions related to time-barred debts and credit reporting. However, the proposed amendments do not address the confusion caused when a creditor subject to the FDCPA is required to communicate with a consumer that has filed a bankruptcy case.

Hosted by the Asset Sales Committee This webinar will discuss the benefits and disadvantages of conducting a sale of assets pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Court compared to an out of court sale. The webinar will provide a general introduction to these issues as well as provide experienced practitioners with a nuanced high level discussion regarding applicable case law, hot button issues, pitfalls to avoid and war stories from the trenches. Speakers: Dawn M. Cica Mushkin Cica Coppedge; Bruce I. Goldstein Amherst Partners; Matthew J. LoCascio Equity Partners HG View Materials

Hospital bankruptcies are on the rise, and rural hospitals are no exception. About 20% of rural hospitals are considered to be at risk of closure nationwide, and the majority of these hospitals are considered essential to their communities. In light of these trends, this webinar will provide ABI members an overview of the unique issues faced by small rural hospital designated as “critical access hospitals” (“CAHs”) by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, the CAH designation allows eligible rural hospitals to receive reimbursement from Medicare (and state Medicaid programs) based on 101% of allowable costs rather than the traditional fee-for-service model. In order to receive the CAH designation, a hospital must be at least 35 miles from another hospital and meet at least the following criteria: (1) have 25 or fewer inpatient acute beds; (2) maintain an average length of stay of less than 96 hours for acute beds and (3) provide 24/7 emergency services. Despite what should be a favorable reimbursement model, the nation’s approximately 1,350 CAHs are plagued with a variety of regulatory and socioeconomic hurdles hampering their profitability. These include shrinking federal and state budgets, physician shortages, the high cost of providing care to under- and uninsured patients, certain physician costs that are not reimbursed on a cost-plus basis, and difficulty repaying overpayments by the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In a lively forum, this panel will focus on: 1. Debt restructuring challenges faced by CAHs due to their narrow margins and cost-based reimbursement model; 2. Alternative solutions to cash flow for CAHs through expansion of medical services, large group physician employment agreements, telemedicine and operational efficiencies; 3. Legal expansion programs in a CAH environment and illegal schemes perpetrated by bad actors who take expansion too far; 4. The roadmap to reorganization for CAHs who find themselves amid allegations of violations of the False Claims Act, Stark Law and Anti-Kickback federal and state laws and in the snarls of a healthcare fraud investigation with either CMS, Medicaid, OIG or commercial payers’ SIU departments; and 5. How to overcome the overpayment liability dilemma. Speakers Carol L. Fox GlassRatner Advisory & Capital Group LLC Elizabeth A. Green BakerHostetler Andrew Helman Murray Plumb & Murray Frank P. Terzo Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP View Materials