Alaska State Approved Sessions

Most health care businesses rely on Medicare, Medicaid and insurance company monies. As a result, understanding the reimbursement system is key to a business’s success or failure. Business leaders on the provider and managed-care side will discuss the rates and pressures on health care businesses, including in insurance company mergers/renegotiations of contracts, and the impact of hospital readmissions, fraud and ACOs. Other panelists will provide a detailed overview of the legal framework, structure and pitfalls of the reimbursement system, including regulatory dos and don’ts and how to keep the money flowing during a restructuring (whether in or outside of bankruptcy).

How do investors and lenders view the health care services industry? Investors will outline criteria for investing in deals, identify key trends and issues, and provide various return characteristics regarding their investments by type of investment. The lenders will outline their views of risk within the various sectors, outline their views of the current state of the market, provide general terms regarding their specific products, and provide a general overview of how their loans are performing. There also will be a focus on some of the more challenging sectors of the industry, particularly hospitals, senior housing and post-acute care. Finally, this panel will highlight the legal challenges in structuring a health care loan, how to attempt to isolate liabilities, and how to recover your money when you need to take legal action on account of defaults, including navigating complex regulations when dealing with patients, records and medical waste, as well as the complexities of a restructuring.

This panel of experts leave conference attendees with key takeaways that will help them know where to find their next opportunities. These experts highlight the financial and legal issues facing the distressed sectors of the industry that you need to know as you work through the restructuring issues facing these sectors.

With Amazon, Walmart and others entering the health care market and partnering with established players, there will be winners and losers as health care businesses navigate the changing delivery of care — from the minute clinics to telemedicine to concierge medicine to whatever might be coming next. This panel will provide an overview of the changes in the delivery of health care, including the legal implications of those changes such as privacy concerns, security breaches, antitrust implications and other legal challenges as the law tries to catch up with innovation.

CEOs share their insights on the challenges facing the industry, the new innovations that will transform the industry, and how health care policy is expected to change, when it will change, what needs to change, and how politics plays into all of this!

This session will discuss both prosecuting and defending § 523 exceptions to discharge adversary proceedings. Rather than cover the substantive law governing what is dischargeable, this session will concentrate on strategies for prosecuting and defending these adversary proceedings, including what must be pled to state a claim for relief, strategies for filing motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment, understanding when collateral estoppel or res judicata from prior litigation has an effect, strategies regarding settlement and mediation, advising clients on options for settlement vs. litigation, and discovery issues and trial strategies.

The Constitution authorizes Congress to enact uniform bankruptcy laws, but attorneys know that many times the handling of consumer bankruptcy cases can seem just like real estate: location, location, location! This session will compare local consumer bankruptcy rules and procedures in the Eastern District of Michigan with those of the Western District of Michigan. It will cover the things that consumer bankruptcy attorneys who practice on both sides of the state need to know about the differences in the specific procedures of each of those courts regarding the preparation and filing of motions, conducting evidentiary hearings, chapter 13 plans and confirmation hearings, § 341 meetings, reaffirmation agreements, use of special-appearance attorneys, ethical implications of running a multidistrict practice, management of adversary proceedings, and the scheduling and handling of small chapter 11 cases.

A frequently asked question by an individual considering bankruptcy is, “What will it mean on my credit report?” This session is designed to help answer that question and other questions regarding credit reporting. What is a credit report? Who provides the information, and what gets reported? What are the range of scores, and what do they mean? How does chapter 7 impact an individual’s credit score going forward? How does chapter 13 impact it? What can an individual do if something untrue is reported? What can you do as the individual’s attorney to help out? What are a creditor’s responsibilities? Does it make any difference if some debts are reaffirmed? What is the effect of not reaffirming a mortgage or automobile purchase? How long does information stay reported? How does a bankruptcy by one spouse affect the credit of the nonfiling spouse?

This session will consider what an attorney can do after receiving an adverse decision from the bankruptcy court, including strategic considerations, as well as the nuts-and-bolts procedures in deciding whether to appeal and in prosecuting an appeal. What decisions are appealable as final orders? What decisions require permission to appeal on an interlocutory basis? What are the applicable Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure governing appeals, and what requirements do they impose? What is the standard of review for an appeal of an incorrect legal decision? What is the standard of review for an appeal of an incorrect factual finding? How and when can you obtain a stay of an adverse ruling pending the appeal? How do doctrines of jurisdiction, standing, mootness and ripeness apply to an appeal? What types of issues most frequently get appealed, and what rates of success are there?

When a client comes to you with a small business in trouble, do you fully understand the financial information they are sharing with you so that you can properly advise them? This session will discuss how to read and understand that financial information, covering such issues as the difference between a financial statement and a balance sheet, the difference between a financial statement that is audited and one that is reviewed or compiled by management, profit-and-loss statements and how does they differ from cash-flow statement, and the levels and types of financial information your client needs to assemble, and you need to understand, for your client to be successful in reorganizing.