PART 2 OF 5 Due Diligence Confirm that what you are buying matches what was represented. Due diligence is where a dental practice acquisition is won or lost. It is your opportunity to verify the seller's representations and uncover problems before they become yours. Build a document request li...
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Buying a Dental Practice: A Five-Part Checklist Series - Part 1
Buying a dental practice is one of the largest professional investments a dentist will make, and the deal involves far more than the price. This series walks through the major stages of a California dental practice acquisition — from structure and diligence to the purchase agreement and the post-closing transition. Each part is a standalone post; together they form a complete checklist.
Structuring a Management Services Organization in California - Part 4
AB 1415 and Advance Notice to the State Assembly Bill 1415 - Under the expanded framework of this bill, private equity groups, hedge funds, MSOs, and certain entities newly formed to carry out healthcare deals may be required to provide advance written notice to the state—generally at least 90 days before executing a qualifying management services agreement or transaction—and to observe the waiting period before closing. The notice runs to California's healthcare market oversight body. The practical effect is that MSO formation and acquisition timelines must now build in a regulatory waiting period that did not previously exist, and parties should determine early whether a contemplated deal triggers the requirement.
Structuring a Management Services Organization in California - Part 3
Governance and Decision Rights A clean MSA on paper is not enough. In 2026, California regulators and the Attorney General are looking past the documents to ask a harder question: in practice, who actually controls the clinical enterprise? Governance is where that question is answered, and where...
Structuring a Management Services Organization in California - Part 2
The Management Services Agreement If the two-entity structure is the skeleton, the management services agreement (MSA) is the spine. It is the contract that defines the entire relationship between the MSO and the PC—what services the MSO provides, how it is paid, and, just as importantly, what i...
Structuring a Management Services Organization in California - Part 1
California's corporate practice of medicine doctrine makes it one of the most challenging states in which to build a scalable healthcare business. The management services organization (MSO) model is the principal tool practices and investors use to do it lawfully. This four-part series walks through the structure from the ground up: the foundational entities, the contract that binds them, the governance that keeps clinical authority where the law requires it, and the regulatory obligations that took effect in 2026.
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA: Implementation
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA — PART 4 OF 4 Practical Implementation: From Letter of Intent to First Patient A phased, sequenced plan for getting the deal done on time and in compliance. Series: Part 1: The Framework | Part 2: The Legal Rules | Part 3: Common Mistakes ...
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA — PART 3 OF 4 Common Mistakes Buyers Make — and How to Avoid Them Seven recurring errors that delay closings, raise costs, or unwind deals. Series: Part 1: The Framework | Part 2: The Legal Rules | Part 3: Common Mistakes | Part 4: Pract...
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA: The Legal Rules
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA — PART 2 OF 4 The Legal Rules That Govern Your Purchase Corporate practice of medicine, ownership limits, the 2026 restrictions, and what does not transfer. Series: Part 1: The Framework | Part 2: The Legal Rules | Part 3: Common Mistakes ...
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA: The framework
BUYING A MEDICAL PRACTICE IN CALIFORNIA — PART 1 OF 4 The Framework: How Medical Practice Purchases Work in California Before price or paperwork, understand who can own a practice and how these deals are built. Series: Part 1: The Framework | Part 2: The Legal Rules | Part 3: Comm...
FCA - Protect Your Practice
PART 3 OF 3 Protecting Your Practice — Before It's Too Late The good news is that FCA exposure is largely manageable with discipline and the right advice. The practices that fare best are not the ones that never make mistakes — they are the ones that find and fix mistakes before a whistleblower...
Ordinary Medical Practice FCA Violations
PART 2 OF 3 How Ordinary Practices Get Caught Very few practices set out to defraud the government. Far more stumble into FCA exposure through routine billing habits that drift out of compliance. Understanding the common fact patterns is the first line of defense. The conduct that draws scru...
Why the FCA should be on your radar
A WEST COAST HEALTH LAW SERIES The False Claims Act in Healthcare What Every Practice Owner Must Know Before It's Too Late The False Claims Act (FCA) is the federal government's most powerful tool against healthcare fraud — and it doesn't require intent to defraud to ruin a practice. In fiscal...
A Practical Launch Guide for 104 NPs
Part 3: So Should You Hang Your Own Shingle? A Practical Launch Guide for 104 NPs Part 3 of a 3-part series on independent nurse practitioner practice in California. Parts 1 and 2 covered the law: 104 NP certification lets a qualified nurse practitioner practice independently, and a nursing cor...
What you can — and cannot — call yourself
Part 2: Yes, You Can Own It — But It Has to Be a Nursing Corporation Part 2 of a 3-part series on independent nurse practitioner practice in California. In Part 1 we established that a 104 NP can legally run an independent practice without a supervising physician. That raises the natural follow...
California NPs can finally own their own practice. Here's the catch.
Part 1: What California's “104 NP” Actually Means — and What It Doesn't Part 1 of a 3-part series on independent nurse practitioner practice in California. If you are a nurse practitioner in California, you have probably heard that 2026 is the year you can finally “go independent” — open yo...
PART 5 · Planning Is a Relationship, Not a Document
PART 5 · Planning Is a Relationship, Not a Document Estate planning has a quiet failure mode that almost no one talks about. The documents are drafted, the binder is delivered, the bill is paid — and then nothing happens. The trust is never “funded.” The deed is never re-recorded into the trus...
PART 4 · Default vs. Designed: A Side-by-Side
PART 4 · Default vs. Designed: A Side-by-Side It is one thing to read about probate fees and statutory rules. It is another to see them next to the alternative for the same physician, the same assets, the same family. The table below is drawn from the typical California healthcare practice own...
PART 3 · Your Practice Is Different: The Healthcare Owner Trap
PART 3 · Your Practice Is Different: The Healthcare Owner Trap For most California estates, the asset that causes the most heartburn is the home. For a healthcare practice owner, it is almost always the practice. And the rules that govern what happens to your practice if you die without a plan...
A Lawsuit Against Yourself
PART 2 · Probate Is a Lawsuit Against Yourself at Your Families' Expense Probate effectively forces your family into court to litigate against your own estate. The phrase comes from estate-planning lawyers who watch families go through it. Probate is, mechanically, exactly what the name sugge...
Your Estate Plan Already Exists. California Wrote It.
Most physicians and healthcare practice owners we meet know they “should” do estate planning. They also tell us it is the one thing they keep moving to next quarter. Here is the line that usually changes the conversation: if you do not have an estate plan, you already have one. The State of Calif...
Certification, Attestation, and Ongoing Compliance: What You Can Credibly Tell Your Partners (Series Part 5 of 5)
HIPAA Compliance for Small Healthcare Organizations: A Practical Series Part 5 of 5 — Certification, Attestation, and Ongoing Compliance: What You Can Credibly Tell Your Partners Across the preceding four posts, we have walked through the threshold analysis, the Business Associate Agreement...
Administrative, Physical, and Technical Safeguard: Turning Regulation Into Operations (Series Part 4 of 5)
HIPAA Compliance for Small Healthcare Organizations: A Practical Series Part 4 of 5 — Administrative, Physical, and Technical Safeguards: Turning Regulation Into Operations The HIPAA Security Rule organizes its substantive requirements into three categories of safeguards: administrative (45...
HIPAA Security Risk Analyses: The #1 Compliance Failure OCR Looks For (Series Part 3 of 5)
HIPAA Compliance for Small Healthcare Organizations: A Practical Series Part 3 of 5 — The Security Risk Analysis: What OCR Asks for First If the Business Associate Agreement is the contractual foundation of HIPAA compliance, the Security Risk Analysis is the operational one. It is required ...
The Business Associate Agreement: The Foundational Document Most Organizations Sign Without Reading (Series Part 2 of 5)
HIPAA Compliance for Small Healthcare Organizations: A Practical Series Part 2 of 5 — The Business Associate Agreement: The Foundational Document Most Organizations Sign Without Reading In Part 1, we established the threshold question of whether HIPAA applies to your organization. If the an...