About M. Ramana Rameswaran

With practical in-house experience inside the health care and pharmaceutical industries, Muthuramanan "Ramana" Rameswaran helps clients on a range of regulatory, transactions, investigatory, and compliance matters. Whether advising private equity funds, physician practices, hospitals and health systems on structuring M&A transactions and joint ventures, or combatting fraud and abuse, Ramana is a trusted voice who understands his clients' business concerns. He is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards and honors, including the ABA's On the Rise - Top 40 Young Lawyers, the ABA Health Law Section's Emerging Young Lawyer in Healthcare and the National Minority Forum's 40 under 40 Leaders in Minority Health.

Legal perspective shaped by medical knowledge and in-house experience

Ramana counsels clients on major M&A transactions and joint ventures particularly involving health care private equity transactions. He provides strategic guidance on health care regulatory issues related to state and federal fraud and abuse laws, telehealth, corporate practice of medicine, operational issues, provider reimbursement, clinical trials and more. He also assists with health care policy analysis and advocacy. Ramana has become one of the nation's leading advisors on CARES Act funding for healthcare providers, and has provided guidance to hundreds of such providers over the past two years.

Ramana uses his in-house experience from his time at Temple University Health System, a Philadelphia-area hospital system, and from Avantor Performance Materials, a performance materials manufacturer for chemicals in the electronics and health sciences industry, to provide practical support to his clients. In addition to traditional health care providers, Ramana has worked extensively with pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and suppliers. He has practiced health care law in both Washington, DC and Pennsylvania.

Ramana is a frequent writer, commentator and speaker on health law and policy issues. Since 2020, he has served as a graduate program guest lecturer at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.

An active leader in the American Bar Association, Ramana served as a member of the Governing Council of the ABA Health Law Section for over four years. He has a strong interest in diversity equity and inclusion, serving in leadership roles that promote DEI initiatives. He is an Eagle Scout, an active nationally registered EMT, and an active certified emergency medical services instructor for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Before attending law school, Ramana attended Temple University School of Medicine and completed course work and clinical rotations towards an MD degree. He also has worked at Merck Sharpe & Dohme, making measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in a good manufacturing practices (GMP) environment.

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Practice Focus

  • Healthcare transactions
  • Health care entities and pharmaceutical manufacturers and suppliers
  • Federal and state fraud and abuse compliance, including Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law compliance
  • Complex co-management, consulting and physician arrangements
  • Large-scale supply-chain arrangements, including GPO arrangements
  • Health IT and privacy
  • Corporate practice of medicine, fee-splitting and licensure
  • 340B Drug Discount Program compliance and contracting

Representative Experience

  • Assisted multiple gastroenterology urology, and other specialty physician groups in transactions with private equity-backed (PE) national management services organizations (MSO) (seller-side).
  • Assisted national dermatology, ophthalmology, cardiology, anesthesia and other specialty MSOs in multiple transactions with providers in such industries (buyer-side).
  • Advised numerous entities on CARES Act healthcare-related funding (e.g. Provider Relief Fund and Medicare Accelerated and Advance Payment Program), vaccine mandate implementation, and numerous other regulatory issues resulting from changes during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency.
  • Assisted numerous telehealth providers with questions on structural and regulatory issues, including corporate practice of medicine (CPOM), licensing, payor contracting, and more.
  • Assisted numerous entities with investigations and submissions under the CMS Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol (SRDP) and with commercial and governmental overpayments, including those issues related to billing and coding errors and anti-markup payment limitation.
  • Provided outside general counsel, day-to-day operations, and regulatory guidance to healthcare entities including health systems, medical practices and related management entities, and ASCs.

Publications

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Presentations and Events