The Health Law Firm, P.A.

Who the firm sets out to represent

The client base here is defined by profession. The firm represents healthcare providers exclusively: physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, mental health counselors, dentists, and therapists. That single focus shapes the rest of its work. When a firm keeps its client base this narrow, the same boards and agencies come up again and again, and the lawyers get repeated exposure to how those bodies operate.

The firm began in 1999 in Orlando, Florida, and now lists its main office in Altamonte Springs, Florida. The common name belongs to a legal entity, The Health Law Firm, P.A., a Florida professional service corporation. In my opinion, a firm that has held to one field for more than two decades tells you something about how it prefers to work.

The range of matters it handles

Most of the firm's work concerns a provider's license. It handles professional license defense, complaint investigations, and hearings before state boards of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, and counseling. These are the proceedings that decide whether a clinician keeps the credential that lets them practice.

The firm also takes on Medicare and Medicaid audits, healthcare fraud defense, and matters involving the Drug Enforcement Administration. It represents clients in hospital medical staff peer review, in contracts, and in administrative and court litigation. Two narrower areas appear as well: board certification and USMLE questions, and challenges tied to the National Practitioner Data Bank.

How these matters usually proceed

A little background helps, since these matters stay unfamiliar to most people outside medicine. A board complaint usually opens with an investigation. From there it moves to an informal or formal stage depending on the findings, and it can end at a hearing before an administrative panel that rules on the license. A Medicare or Medicaid audit turns on documentation: the records a provider kept, the codes billed, and whether the two agree. When they do not, the program can ask for money back or refer the file for further review.

The narrower items follow their own paths. A DEA matter can put a prescriber's registration at stake, which is separate from a state license. A National Practitioner Data Bank entry follows a provider between employers and hospitals, so a challenge to what an entry says carries weight well past the first dispute. Hospital peer review runs through a committee of other clinicians, and it stays inside the hospital. The firm's areas of work line up with these tracks.

Matters that cross into federal programs

The firm says it can act in all states for certain federal matters. It names military, Veterans Affairs, and Medicare cases. These programs run their own tribunals and rules, separate from the state licensing boards, so a lawyer can appear in them without holding a license in every state where a client lives.

How the team is built

The firm lists a roster of eight. George F. Indest III is board certified by The Florida Bar in health law. He is a former general counsel at a teaching hospital and a member of the American Association of Nurse Attorneys and the American Health Lawyers Association. He has written articles and books on health law, nursing law, and physician representation, and he edits and publishes eight blogs on health law topics.

The other named attorneys are Lance O. Leider, Amanda I. Forbes, Castillana F. (Duvernay) Aguy, and Alexa D. Jeacoma. The firm lists Michael L. Smith and Carole C. Schriefer as Of Counsel, and Joanne Kenna as retired. The firm says its attorneys hold Master of Laws degrees in health law and board certification in health law.

As a reviewer, I read the credential mix as the detail worth noting. The firm names board certification in health law and Master of Laws degrees in the same field for its lawyers. Board certification through a state bar is a status a lawyer earns by meeting defined experience and examination requirements in one area of law, and it renews on a cycle. The firm places those qualifications next to the specific proceedings its attorneys handle.

Where the attorneys are admitted

The firm's lawyers hold licenses in Florida, Colorado, Louisiana, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Licensing rules mean a lawyer generally appears before the courts and agencies of a state where that lawyer is admitted, so a health law firm working across several states tends to carry a spread of admissions like this one. That spread matches the offices the firm keeps.

Offices and public materials

The firm lists its main office in Altamonte Springs, Florida, with offices by appointment in Orlando and Pensacola, Florida, and in New Orleans, Louisiana. The New Orleans office puts the firm in a second state, and the roster carries Louisiana licenses to match.

The firm names four channels where it posts: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. For a provider looking into counsel, channels like these are one way to see how a firm talks about its health law work before a first call.

What a prospective client can weigh

The firm's own materials give a clear read on its scope. It names one client type, a defined set of provider-side matters, and a named attorney who holds board certification in health law. For a clinician facing a board complaint, an audit, or a question from the DEA, those are the facts that bear on the choice of counsel.

In my opinion, the steadiest thing in the firm's public record is its focus. The firm has kept to health law since 1999, and the matters it lists match the situations a licensed provider is most likely to meet.