Medical Staff Disputes

A variety of situations can give rise to disputes between hospitals and physicians or between individual physicians and physician practices. Physicians may protest denial or loss of medical staff privileges, or what they see as interference with their practice by hospital administrators or other physicians. Hospitals may think a physician has not lived up to the terms of a recruitment or service agreement and wish to terminate the agreement or recover prior payments. A physician may disagree with a physician organization about compensation or the terms of a buy/sell agreement or non-competition provisions.

RPC has assisted attorneys representing all sides in these medical staff disputes. Our expertise in healthcare has enabled us to analyze the underlying facts relative to medical staff bylaws, physician contracts and organizational procedures to provide opinions on the reasonableness of actions by the parties and on liability issues in a case. We are able to apply our healthcare expertise to the analysis of economic damages, as well as analyze whether a party has acted properly to mitigate its damages.

In all cases we identify a team of RPC professionals who can efficiently and effectively analyze the facts and law of the case, develop a plan for the analysis and execute that plan. Situations we have worked on include:

• Denial or loss of medical staff privileges
• Interference with the exercise of medical staff privileges
• Breach of a physician recruitment agreement
• Violation of non-competition agreement
• Dispute over a buy/sell agreement
• Compliance with bylaws or peer review process