Advance Healthcare Directives in California, Explained A Legal Guide for Patients, Families, and Providers An advance healthcare directive lets a California adult decide, in advance, who will speak for them and what care they want if they become unable to communicate. This guide covers what the document is and why it matters, how to choose an agent and give clear instructions, the formalities required to execute and maintain it, and what healthcare providers must know when a patient has one.
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Independent Contractor Rules for Healthcare Providers in California: Part 4
PART 4 OF 4: Structuring Compliant Provider Relationships A practical framework for classifying and documenting healthcare engagements. Classification compliance is achieved through how a practice actually operates, supported by documentation that reflects that reality. This article provides a ...
Independent Contractor Rules for Healthcare Providers in California: Part 3
PART 3 OF 4: The Consequences of Getting It Wrong The exposure that follows a misclassification finding. Misclassification liability is cumulative, retroactive, and can arise from multiple agencies at once. A single worker's claim frequently expands into an examination of every similarly situat...
Independent Contractor Rules for Healthcare Providers in California: Part 2
PART 2 OF 4: Classification in Practice: Common Healthcare Arrangements
Independent Contractor Rules for Healthcare Providers in California: Part 1
Worker classification is one of the highest-risk compliance areas facing California healthcare practices, and the standards have tightened significantly in recent years. This guide covers the ABC test and who it reaches, how classification applies to the arrangements practices use most, the consequences of getting it wrong, and a framework for structuring compliant relationships.
HIPAA Compliance for Healthcare Practices: Part 4
PART 4 OF 4: Breach Response and Building a Compliance Program Preparing for incidents and operationalizing HIPAA compliance. Even a careful practice can face a potential breach, and how it responds is itself a compliance obligation. This post addresses breach notification duties and consolidat...
HIPAA Compliance for Healthcare Practices: Part 3
PART 3 OF 4: The Security Rule and Safeguarding ePHI Protecting electronic health information in practice. As practices have moved to electronic records, the Security Rule has become central to HIPAA compliance. It requires practices to protect electronic protected health information through a ...
HIPAA Compliance for Healthcare Practices: Part 2
PART 2 OF 4: The Privacy Rule and Patient Rights How PHI may be used and the rights patients hold over it. The Privacy Rule is the part of HIPAA that patients experience most directly. It controls how a practice may use and share protected health information and gives patients a set of enforcea...
HIPAA Compliance for Healthcare Practices: Part 1
HIPAA compliance is a baseline obligation for every healthcare practice, and its requirements reach into nearly every part of daily operations. This guide breaks HIPAA into its working parts: the fundamentals, the Privacy Rule and patient rights, the Security Rule and safeguarding electronic health information, and breach response and building an ongoing compliance program.
California Telehealth Compliance Requirements: Part 4
PART 4 OF 4: Building a Telehealth Compliance Program A practical checklist for standing up compliant remote care. The requirements that govern California telehealth are most manageable when they are built into the practice's standard operations rather than addressed encounter by encounter. Thi...
California Telehealth Compliance Requirements: Part 3
PART 3 OF 4: Prescribing, Reimbursement, and Practice Structure The operational rules that shape a telehealth practice. Telehealth compliance extends into how providers prescribe, how services are paid for, and how the practice itself is organized. Each of these areas carries requirements that ...
California Telehealth Compliance Requirements: Part 2
PART 2 OF 4: Consent, Privacy, and Documentation The patient-facing obligations that telehealth adds. Beyond licensure, California imposes specific requirements on how telehealth encounters are consented to, kept private, and documented. These obligations protect patients and, handled well, pro...
California Telehealth Compliance Requirements: Part 1
Telehealth is now a standard part of California medical practice, but remote care carries its own set of legal requirements. This guide covers the essentials: licensing and the provider-patient relationship; consent, privacy, and documentation; prescribing, reimbursement, and practice structure; and a practical checklist for building a telehealth compliance program.
Selling a Medical Practice in California: Part 4
PART 4 OF 4: Executing the Sale A stage-by-stage roadmap from listing to closing. A well-prepared practice still needs a disciplined process to reach a successful closing. The roadmap below organizes a California medical practice sale into clear stages, from bringing the practice to market thro...
Selling a Medical Practice in California: Part 3
PART 3 OF 4: Common Mistakes Sellers Make The missteps that cost sellers value — or the deal. Even a strong practice can sell for less than it should, or fail to close, when avoidable errors go unaddressed. The pitfalls below recur in California medical practice sales. Recognizing them early is...
Selling a Medical Practice in California: Part 2
PART 2 OF 4: The Legal Rules That Govern the Sale The California-specific constraints every seller should understand. Selling a medical practice in California means navigating a regulatory environment that does not apply to ordinary business sales. Understanding these constraints protects the d...
Selling a Medical Practice in California: Part 1
Selling a Medical Practice in California - A Legal Guide for Physician Sellers Selling a medical practice is one of the most consequential transactions in a physician's career, and in California it unfolds against a distinctive regulatory backdrop. This guide covers preparing the practice for sale, the legal rules that govern the transaction, the mistakes that most often cost sellers, and a stage-by-stage roadmap to closing.
Buying a Medical Practice: Part 4
Part 4 of 4 — Implementation Putting the framework, rules, and lessons into a working checklist. The final step is execution. This closing post pulls the framework (Part 1), the legal rules (Part 2), and the common mistakes (Part 3) into a sequential checklist you can use to move a medical prac...
Buying a Medical Practice: Part 3
Part 3 of 4 — The Common Mistakes Where medical practice acquisitions go wrong — and how to avoid it. Knowing the framework and the rules is only useful if you can spot where deals actually break down. The mistakes below recur across medical practice acquisitions. Ignoring Corporate Pract...
Buying a Medical Practice: Part 2
Part 2 of 4 — The Legal Rules The regulatory constraints that shape every medical practice deal. With the framework in place, the next step is understanding the legal rules that govern who can buy a California medical practice and how. These rules are not optional deal points — they are constra...
Buying a Medical Practice: Part One
Buying a medical practice is one of the most significant transactions a physician will undertake, and it sits at the intersection of business and heavily regulated healthcare law. This four-part series builds a complete picture in sequence of what you'll need to know going in.
Buying a Dental Practice: A Five-Part Checklist Series - Part 5
Protecting the value you just paid for. Closing is not the finish line. A smooth transition protects the goodwill and patient relationships you just bought, and several post-closing steps are time-sensitive. This final post covers needs to be handled once the deal is done.
Revocable vs. Irrevocable Trusts in California: What High-Liability Professionals Should Know Before Choosing "Irrevocable"
Revocable vs. Irrevocable Trusts in California: What High‑Liability Professionals Should Know Before Choosing “Irrevocable” An estate‑planning overview for physicians, surgeons, and other professionals who want to protect their assets from future lawsuits and leave everything to their children. ...
Buying a Dental Practice: A Five-Part Checklist Series - Part 4
PART 4 - The Purchase Agreement and Closing Protections Turn your diligence findings into enforceable protection. The definitive purchase agreement is where everything you learned in diligence becomes binding — or doesn't. This post covers the key terms that protect you, both at closing and a...
Buying a Dental Practice: A Five-Part Checklist Series - Part 3
PART 3 OF 5 Assets, Leases, and Contracts A dental practice is a bundle of tangible and intangible assets tied together by contracts. This post looks at what actually transfers in the sale and the terms that come with it. A single overlooked item — like a short remaining lease — can undermine a...