Medical Device, Biotech & Health Care

Kathleen Behan provides clients with strategic legal advice on cutting-edge health care issues, including Medicare coverage and payment policies for emerging treatments and technologies, health care fraud and compliance advice, and health care litigation. Her clients include small and large medical device and biotechnology companies, medical associations, and physician practices. Ms. Behan has worked on a number of complex problems before Medicare, including coverage policy for cardiac revascularization, bariatric surgery, macular degeneration, nerve stimulation, and cardiac rehabilitation services.

Ms. Behan also has experience representing health care and pharmaceutical companies in compliance and investigative matters. She has assisted companies in drafting compliance manuals and has represented entities facing compliance investigations, including internal investigations of marketing practices, external payment and reimbursement investigations, and Congressional inquiries concerning consultant and physician payments.

In addition to her commercial work, Ms. Behan has an active pro bono health care practice. Ms. Behan has served on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Persons with Disabilities. She currently is on the Legal Advisory Board to the Epilepsy Foundation of America. Ms. Behan has lectured on various health care related topics, including to medical device associations and patient advocacy organizations such as NORD. She is the author of various publications in the American Journal of Clinical Microbiology relating to serological testing methods, including The Elimination by Dithiothreitol of the Non-Specific Cross Reacting Antibodies IgG and IgM for F. Tularensis and B. Abortus (K. Behan and G. Klein).

Case Study

In 2002 Ms. Behan brought a ground-breaking lawsuit against HHS and CMS on behalf of a coalition of patient groups and companies seeking to enforce BIPA, the patient bill of rights. In Jalbert v. Thompson, the plaintiff patient groups, Novartis, and others sued to require Medicare to implement the right of Medicare beneficiaries to challenge national coverage determinations (NCDs)that restrict access to medically necessary treatments. Ms. Behan was instrumental in negotiating a settlement with the Department of Justice that provides for a modernized Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee (MedCAC) and a regulatory framework for stakeholders to seek coverage for new and emerging technologies. Since that time, Ms. Behan has represented numerous clients with hearings or NCD proceedings before Medicare.

910 17th St. N.W. Ste. 800 Washington, DC 20006 Office: (202) 223-9005 Cell: (202) 531-4382 Fax:1-202-354-5226