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Meeting with an Attorney for contract/compliance plan

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TxJFP:
I have met with an attorney regarding the legalities when running a business, in this case a medical billing business, BUT it'll cost me $200.00/hr for my lawyer to type up a rough draft of the contract and compliance plan. Could I just type it myself and spend another $100.00/hr to just sit with her and make sure it's precisely done to hand out when in the process signing up a doctor...?  Any suggestions...?

QueenAlicia:
I have typed mine up but still need a lawyer to look over it.  Maybe the lawyer could look over it and add suggestions for verbage and what not.

TxJFP:
Yeah that's what I was thinking.
I feel that I have gone over a reasonable amount of possibilities the first time around and by e-mail, that she will now of me in case other questions/concerns arise.

PMRNC:
$200 an hour is actually pretty average.. Attorney's and Legal practices are bound to provide you with a complete and accurate itemized bill which includes everything from phone calls to research to typing. With that said for example if your attorney estimates it will take 4 hours to produce that's not bad..It's an expense well paid! On the other hand if he tells you it will be 12 hours, then I would shop around. What I wouldn't do is NOT have an attorney go over it.   What I did was negotiate with my attorney. Since the one I chose HAD experience in this area and was going to be doing "my compliance" I asked him if he was going to stand behind it.  With that I paid him a retainer and it covered my compliance plan, review of and he would stand behind it in case of any issues :) Also included was my contracts and again, he would stand behind them.  Getting an attorney to provide these for you is not as important as the one who will stand behind it. Don't look at just the cost of some paper put together, look for an attorney who is willing to put his reputation on the line for it, that's worth more than having it drafted. You can most certainly make the costs less by doing your own and having them just go over it and make revisions with you.   Also.. remember your compliance plan is to be customized to YOUR company. Having an attorney draft up a set of compliance regs does NOT make you compliant, so in reality who should actually create the compliance plan??.. YOU. It's your business. You have the attorney review it, make suggestions, look for legal regs for your state and make sure it meets federal guidelines as well.  If you have him draft it and you have not made the efforts or put forth the costs and services to be compliant, your compliance plans isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Sit down with the OIG's compliance for third party billers and go along with it, make your company compliant, put it together and let the attorney worry about the verbiage!    Do not skimp costs in this area.
Also I know a lot of billing companies who hire pre-paid legal services.. please do your research carefully as they are NOT as legally obliged as a private law firm.

Michele:
That is the reason we wrote our contracts book.  So that people could have an idea of what to cover in the contract before going to the attorney.  It is crucial to have the attorney do the final copy and make sure you've covered all your bases and it's all legal, but you need to decide what you want to cover and how you want it covered.

You can get more info at:  http://www.medicalbillinglive.com/medical-billing-service-contract.shtml

Michele

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