Gilchrist Donnell PLLC

Focus and practice areas

Health care law is the entire focus of this Ridgeland, Mississippi firm. Its clients are physicians, hospitals, long-term care facilities, pharmacies and other providers who operate under layers of state and federal health rules. The work covers regulatory compliance, reimbursement, governance, investigations and operational risk. That mix puts Gilchrist Donnell PLLC close to the business side of medicine, where a clinical decision and a payment rule often meet.

Providers carry a heavy regulatory load, and much of it plays out in policies, filings and board meetings. A hospital board might weigh a new policy while a physician group reads a fresh payment rule and a pharmacy files paperwork with its state board. The firm advises at those points, before a dispute forms and after one lands. In my opinion, that early advice is where a health care firm earns its value, because the cost of a compliance miss climbs fast once a regulator opens a file.

Governance belongs in the same picture. The firm advises on the policies and oversight that keep a provider organization inside the rules. That is steady work, and it shapes how an organization holds up when a regulator or a plaintiff looks closely.

Compliance and the federal fraud laws

Three federal statutes drive most health care compliance work, and the firm advises on all three: the Stark Law, the Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act. Each polices a different risk. Stark restricts physician referrals that are tied to a financial relationship. The Anti-Kickback Statute reaches payments meant to induce referrals or business paid for by federal programs. The False Claims Act attaches liability to bills submitted to those programs that turn out to be false. A single arrangement, say a lease between a hospital and a doctor who refers patients to it, can raise questions under all three at once.

Data privacy runs next to this work. The firm handles HIPAA and HITECH issues, risk assessments, breach response and government inquiries. A breach starts its own clock: once a provider finds that protected patient data has been exposed, the law sets deadlines to notify patients and regulators. The firm's job at that moment is to establish what happened, what the rules require and who needs to hear about it. As a reviewer, I read the pairing of fraud compliance and privacy as a sign the firm follows its clients across the regulatory picture they actually face.

When a government inquiry arrives, the shape of the response matters as much as the underlying facts. A subpoena or a civil investigative demand sets deadlines and defines what a provider must hand over, and an early misstep can widen the exposure. The firm's compliance and privacy work feeds straight into that moment, since the same statutes that guide daily policy also frame how an inquiry gets resolved.

Reimbursement, audits and Certificate of Need

Money moving between providers and government payers produces a large share of health care disputes, and the firm works this side heavily. It represents providers in Medicare and Medicaid audits, overpayment disputes, reimbursement appeals and agency investigations. An audit usually opens with a records request, moves to a set of findings, and then runs through appeal levels inside the agency before it reaches a court. A provider that answers the first request well can shrink the fight that comes after.

Overpayment disputes have their own rhythm. A payer identifies money it believes a provider was paid in error, and the provider can accept the finding or contest it through the appeal levels the program sets out. Timing controls a lot here, because the windows to appeal are short and a missed one can lock in a repayment demand. The firm handles these appeals alongside the audits that spark them, which keeps one team on a dispute that can start with a records request and end several appeal levels later.

Certificate of Need work is part of the same regulatory family. In many states, a provider that wants to add beds, build a facility or buy major equipment must first win state approval that the service is needed. Competitors can oppose the application, which turns a filing into a contested proceeding with hearings and, at times, litigation. Gilchrist Donnell PLLC handles Certificate of Need applications, contested proceedings, administrative hearings and the litigation that can follow. That work rewards a firm comfortable with both the paperwork and the hearing room where it gets argued.

Credentialing, pharmacy and long-term care

Clearing a clinician to practice and keeping a facility licensed is a distinct body of health care law, and the firm covers it. It handles medical staff credentialing and peer review, the internal process a hospital uses to grant a physician privileges and to check on them over time. Peer review can affect a doctor's ability to work, so it carries real stakes and follows its own procedural rules. The firm represents parties who find themselves inside that process.

Pharmacy regulation is a second strand. The firm advises on pharmacy and compounding regulation and on Board of Pharmacy matters, the licensing and disciplinary questions a state board can raise with a pharmacy or a compounder. It also represents long-term care providers, a group that answers to overlapping state and federal oversight because it houses patients who need daily care. Each area runs on a specific regulator and a specific rulebook, and the firm's service list reads as though it was built around exactly who its clients answer to.

Long-term care oversight has a texture of its own. Nursing facilities go through periodic surveys, and a deficiency finding can carry penalties or threaten a facility's certification to bill federal programs. The firm's representation of these providers plays out against that backdrop of routine inspection and standing federal involvement. Pharmacy and compounding rules add another regulator with its own inspection powers, which is why a provider group can find itself answering to several agencies in the same year.

Employment matters and workplace investigations

Health care employers face labor questions that carry a clinical edge, and the firm advises on them. It drafts and negotiates physician and executive contracts, advises on non-compete provisions, and handles workplace compliance and employment disputes. A physician contract often folds in call schedules, productivity pay and referral terms, which ties an ordinary employment document back to the fraud statutes the firm works with elsewhere. That overlap means an employment matter at a health care employer usually touches compliance too.

Non-compete provisions draw their own scrutiny. A court weighs whether a restriction is reasonable in time, geography and scope before it will enforce one, and a health care employer has to draft with that test in mind. The firm advises on these clauses from both sides, for the group that wants to protect a patient base and for the physician who wants room to keep practicing.

The firm also runs workplace investigations. These reach discrimination, harassment, misconduct and regulatory violations. An investigation of this kind gathers facts, interviews the people involved and produces findings an employer can act on. Handled carefully, it gives a provider a defensible record if a claim later reaches an agency or a court.

The attorneys the site names

Two attorneys appear by name on the firm's website: Brant Ryan and Katie Gilchrist. The site presents both as firm attorneys, and the firm's name points to the Gilchrist role in a practice of this size. The site does not publish their titles, law schools or bar admission years, so a reader who wants those specifics will reach the firm to get them.

What the public material supports is a clear shape. Gilchrist Donnell PLLC works in one field, health care, and covers the regulatory, financial, licensing and employment questions that field produces. It advises Mississippi providers on staying compliant and represents them when a payer or an agency pushes back. The site anchors that work to Ridgeland and to two named attorneys.