Michelle E. Lin

Ms. Lin is a founding Principal with Lin and Patel, LLC.  Ms. Lin strategically guides health care providers through the continually-changing regulatory environment.  She concentrates her practices in several areas including, payer audits, payment issues, compliance with statutes and regulations, including the Anti-Kickback Statute, Stark, physician licensing matters, commercial pay or contracting, and the sale and purchase of provider practices.  Ms. Lin devotes her practices to legal issues impacting acute providers such as hospitals, post-acute providers including home health care agencies and hospices, physicians and physician groups.  Ms. Lin focuses her practice on defending providers against pre and post-payment audits resulting in overpayments, and has successfully defended clients at all levels of the Medicare appeals process and against other commercial payers.  Ms. Lin also regularly counsels providers regarding corporate and employment related matters.

Prior to joining Lin and Patel, LLC, Ms. Lin was General Counsel of a long-term care provider, facilitating it through the purchase of other providers, surveys/corrective action plans, pre and post-payment audits, contract drafting and negotiations, and employment related matters.  Ms. Lin also worked as General Counsel for a hospital where she advised on the day to day operations of the hospital, including drafting and negotiating contracts, advising on compliance related matters, reviewing and revising policies and procedures impacting employees and Medical Staff, and managed risk management cases.  She was also employed as Corporate Counsel for a physician practice where she most notably helped it secure a favorable appeal of a large Medicare overpayment.

Prior to her recent in-house experience, Ms. Lin worked in private practice in insurance defense litigation.

Area of Focus

  • Responding to surveys, appealing survey findings and sanctions; corrective action plans
  • Medicare and Medicaid certification
  • Corrective action plans
  • Audits by RAC, MAC, UPIC, Medicaid and other payers
  • Reimbursement issues for all payers
  • Physician employment contracts
  • Physician licensing and related hearings
  • Internal investigations
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Fraud and abuse- Stark and Anti-Kickback compliance
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Compliance plans and policies and procedures
  • HIPAA / Health Information and Security
  • Telehealth
  • Payer Contracting

Bar Jurisdictions

  • Illinois, 2006

Education

  • J.D., University of Illinois College of Law, 2005
    • Best Brief in Frederick Douglass Moot Coot
    • Dean’s List
  • M.B.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998
  • B.S., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997
    • Dean’s List

Memberships

  • American Health Lawyers Association
  • Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys – Board of Director- 2024, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee Chair- 2024
  • American Bar Association- Health Law Section
  • Chicago Bar Association- Professional Fees Committee-Past Chair

Providers

  • Commercial and Third-Party Payers
  • Hospitals
  • Long-term care- skilled nursing home, assisted living, home health and hospice
  • Medical Spas
  • Naturopathic Doctors
  • Physicians and physician groups