{{insights.date}}
{{insights.type}}
{{insights.contentTypeTag}}
Elizabeth Trende
Of Counsel
Elizabeth “Emy” Trende brings more than a decade of experience assisting healthcare clients of all sizes and types as they navigate the changing provider landscape. She joins the firm following several years of key roles in legal leadership for one of the largest academic medical centers in the country (including an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center), and prides herself on an empathic, provider-side approach to counseling. Emy focuses her practice on strategic initiatives and innovative design of provider alignment models and healthcare transactions, including the development of clinically integrated networks and accountable care organizations, population health programs, joint ventures and affiliations, compensation design, compliance with federal and state fraud and abuse laws, Medicare reimbursement rules and accreditation standards, governance and preparation of compliance plans, policies and procedures. From prompt response to day-to-day risk management queries to broader transactional problem-solving, Emy looks forward to helping her clients thrive in evolving circumstances.
Emy’s experience spans a broad spectrum of healthcare laws and regulations, and includes counseling and applied drafting on projects implicating the federal Stark and Anti-Kickback laws, antitrust, patient and data privacy regulations, research and clinical trial rules, pharmaceuticals, laboratory, transplant program rules, government payor regulations, medical staffing, managed care and special rules applicable to cancer care in PPS-exempt hospitals.
Outside of transactions and governance, Emy assists clients as they conduct and respond to investigations. She was extensively involved in the federal investigation of a physician-owned provider, and ultimately helped secure dismissal of an underlying qui tam lawsuit involving more than 100 defendants. Emy also has designed and guided internal self-audit processes for various providers, advised clients on overpayment returns and government self-disclosure, and successfully argued in multiple Medicare and Medicaid administrative appeals.
Emy is national vice chair of publications for the American Health Lawyers Association In-House Counsel Practice Group, a member of the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) and was a lead chapter author for The ACO Handbook, 2nd Edition. She is a frequent presenter at a number of healthcare-related professional associations, as well as in seminars and webinars prepared for individual clients.
Emy has been named a Rising Star in the practice of health law by SuperLawyers Magazine. She was also named one of Columbus’ Forty Under 40 by Columbus Business First in 2015.
Emy is founder and board member of The Mother Ship, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides emotional, social, community, health and financial support to parents of children with special needs in the Central Ohio area. She has a passion for caregiver wellness and support.
- Served as senior assistant vice president and senior associate general counsel, managing strategic initiatives and external partnerships for a large academic medical center, and managed regulatory and transactional lawyer teams.
- Led a transactional team to establish one of the first inpatient hospice units within an academic medical center, and assisted in the design of innovative post-acute care relationships.
- Led multiple novel joint venture and affiliation transactions to expand home-care and hospital-at-home offerings.
- Advised on the design, governance model and ongoing enrollment and operations of a large accountable care organization and affiliated value-based population health programs.
- Developed dynamic research collaboration structures with public and private partners, including high-speed deal development during the COVID-19 pandemic to support viral transport medium manufacturing and distribution, PPE disinfection and mass testing.
- Lead associate for a team that secured dismissal of a large-scale qui tam action against a physician-owned joint venture, involving more than 100 defendants. Also managed the accompanying CID response to the US Department of Justice, and helped secure the ultimate declination of government intervention in the case.
- Lead associate in multiple provider compliance and reimbursement appeal hearings, including medical necessity-related appeals. Argued successfully for retraction of more than US$1 million in alleged overpayments sought by state and federal agencies.
- Guided facilities in conducting internal audits and investigations, and developing compliance plans and protocols.
- Drafted and guided multiple physician alignment transactions, including management, co-management, professional and managerial services agreements.
- Guided clients in innovative reformation of medical staff structures and related governance issues, with emphasis on compliance with clinical integration and accountable care.
- Coordinated, start to finish, licensure and enrollment processes for new healthcare facilities, as well as changes of ownership and changes in corporate character for existing facilities, including application of provider-based rules, addition of services and entity reclassifications.
Education
- Georgetown University, J.D., 2005
- Harvard University, B.A., 2000
Admissions
- Ohio, 2012
- Virginia (associate status), 2005
- Author, “Riding the Waive: The Value of a Waiver Debrief Process in the Waning Days of the Public Health Emergency, and in Bracing for the Next Disruption,” AHLA Health Law Connections, November 1, 2021.