• Kaufman Hall published a summary of health system M&A data from 2025 with some interesting charts. A few highlights: (1) transactions involving a financially distressed party hit 43.5%, almost triple the rate in 2022; (2) correspondingly, the credit rating of the smaller party to the deal hit a record low in 2025; (3) the average size of the financially distressed party, in revenue, was $345M last year, which is about 2.5x larger than the same metric in 2023 (i.e.,

    • …
    Continue Reading Weekly Hospital Real Estate Briefing: Rochester Regional Enters EaaS Deal | Henry Ford Health Establishes Theranostics JV in Detroit | Benefits of Integrated Project Delivery for Hospital Design and Construction

    Estate planning for high-earning professionals may seem straight forward as you enter higher tax brackets, but the reality is there may be more protections that need to be in place. High-earning professionals often assume they’re “too young,” “too busy,” or “well covered” when it comes to estate planning. In reality, higher income brings higher complexity — and more risk if planning is delayed.
    If you’re a physician, dentist, attorney, business owner, executive, or licensed professional earning a substantial income,…
    Continue Reading Estate Planning for High-Earning Professionals

    ​​
    Jan. 23, 2026 – The Fourth Amendment’s private search doctrine protected a warrantless view of a video that Snapchat flagged as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday in State v. Gasper, 2026 WI 3.

    “The government did not exceed the scope of Snapchat’s search when it viewed the video because any expectation of privacy [Michael Joseph] Gasper may have had in the video was frustrated by the private…
    Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Video View OK Within Private Search

    In recent years, advancements in neuroscience have shaped and reshaped how we understand the adolescent brain and psyche. For most of our nation’s legal history, however, children have been overlooked, undervalued, and misunderstood. In the 1990s, several criminologists coined the term “super-predator” in a book in which they theorized that America would be the “home to thickening ranks of juvenile ‘super-predators’ – radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more pre-teenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal…
    Continue Reading Neuroscience in the Courtroom Informs How We Should Sentence Youth

    The Indiana Supreme Court (the “Court”) upheld a trial court’s Order for Temporary Commitment, reaffirming the new mootness standard for temporary civil commitment appeals first established earlier this year in In re Commitment of J.F., 256 N.E.3d 1260 (Ind. 2025). In re Commitment of M.C., 262 N.E.3d 836 (Ind. 2025).
    Background
    In J.F., the Court held that an appeal from a temporary civil-commitment order does not become moot merely because the order has expired. See In …
    Continue Reading Indiana Supreme Court Reaffirms Mootness Standard in Temporary Civil Commitment Appeals

    Some of the advocacy groups and think tanks that lobbied for the Medicaid provider tax restrictions in last year’s H.R. 1 are now renewing their criticisms of the states’ use of “intergovernmental transfers” (“IGTs”) from governmental health care providers to fund the non-federal share of Medicaid payments to those same providers.[1] The critics’ goal appears to be twofold: first, to shift Medicaid costs away from the federal government despite the federal government’s shared financial responsibility with the states …
    Continue Reading In Defense of Intergovernmental Transfers from Governmental Health Care Providers

    On January 1, 2026, Minnesota officially launched its state-administered Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) program, triggering an immediate surge of over 25,000 benefit applications in the first two weeks alone. As many Minnesotan employers are quickly discovering, the post-PFML workplace poses significant operational challenges. As the legal landscape continues to evolve in Minnesota (and those benefit applications keep rolling in), employers must become intimately familiar not only with administering the program but also with the variety of pitfalls…
    Continue Reading Thousands Apply for Minnesota PFML: What Employers Should Do Now

    The Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (“HSR Act”), as amended, requires all persons contemplating certain mergers or acquisitions that meet or exceed the jurisdictional thresholds (shown below) to file a premerger notification (an “HSR Filing”) with the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) Premerger Notification Office and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Antitrust Division and to wait a period of time before consummating the transaction.

    Each fiscal year, the jurisdictional filing thresholds are adjusted to reflect the percentage change in…
    Continue Reading FTC Announces Annual Hart-Scott-Rodino Premerger Notification Filing Thresholds Increase for 2026

    Health care organizations planning major capital projects, such as hospital expansions, surgical centers and outpatient facilities, often face familiar frustrations: delays, cost overruns, redesign cycles and coordination breakdowns. Traditional delivery models like design‑bid‑build or construction manager‑at‑risk can unintentionally reinforce silos. Integrated Project Delivery Agreements (“IPDA”) offer a collaborative alternative designed to align incentives, reduce waste and improve project performance.
    What Is an IPDA?
    An IPDA is a single, multi‑party contract that binds the owner, architect, contractor and key consultants…
    Continue Reading From Silos to Synergy: Integrated Project Delivery Agreements for Today’s Health Care Facilities

    The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently released a new set of opinion letters addressing recurring questions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

    While opinion letters are based on specific fact patterns, they provide valuable insight into how the DOL analyzes common compliance questions and foreshadow DOL enforcement priorities, and they are often relied upon by courts and investigators.

    The latest batch addresses employee classification, overtime calculations, collective bargaining agreements,…
    Continue Reading U.S. Department of Labor Issues New FLSA and FMLA Opinion Letters: Key Compliance Takeaways for Employers

    What to know if childbirth recovery, postpartum depression, or anxiety keeps you from returning to work
    Pregnancy and childbirth are often described as joyful milestones—but they can also bring unexpected medical challenges. For many working parents, short-term disability (STD) insurance provides critical income replacement during pregnancy and recovery after birth. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that disability benefits don’t have to end simply because the “standard” recovery period has passed. When complications arise, benefits can frequently be extended, and…
    Continue Reading Short-Term and Long-Term Disability Benefits for Pregnancy and Postpartum Complications

    The reality for many individuals with severe disabilities is that they cannot afford to stop working altogether while waiting for their Social Security Disability Insurance (“SSDI”) application to be processed. The SSDI process can be lengthy and, if a claim is denied at both the initial and reconsiderations stages, it may take years to reach the hearing stage. For some claimants, more than two years can go by before a final decision is made which can be unreasonably long…
    Continue Reading  I have a disability, but I am working. Am I eligible for SSDI?

    The health care transactional landscape may have been quieter than anticipated at the beginning of 2025, with providers experiencing financial strains, but the year finished out with a high level of activity, marked by opportunistic growth strategies. Transactions will continue to be anything but “cookie-cutter.” In this article, we highlight eight M&A trends demonstrating how the financial landscape, regulatory considerations, cross-disciplinary strategies and market disruptors shaped deals in 2025 and how these same factors will continue to impact deals…
    Continue Reading Bottom Line: Health Care Transactions Are More Bespoke Than Ever – Lessons Learned from 2025 and What’s to Come in 2026

    We frequently get calls from hospital systems, health care providers and investors regarding negotiating on-campus ground leases. They are certainly unique. Here are 10 business points to consider when negotiating on-campus ground leases.

  • Premises – The land being leased can vary widely. We often see hospitals ground leasing only the footprint of the building. There are some instances, on larger campuses, where the hospital allows the developer to lease the land needed for the footprint of the building, plus

    • …
    Continue Reading Weekly Hospital Real Estate Briefing: 10 Tips for Negotiating On-Campus Ground Leases

    State-level employment regulation continues to evolve in California independently of broader federal enforcement priorities. On October 12, 2025, California enacted the Workplace Know Your Rights Act (S.B. 294) intended to “equip workers with knowledge of their rights that they can also use to protect their families, neighbors, and communities at a time of potential disruption, dislocation, and fear for many Californians.” The Act contains five primary requirements.
    Continue Reading California Employers Face February 1 Deadline Under Workplace Know Your
    Rights Act

    Health care employment professionals face an all-too-familiar challenge entering 2026: keeping pace with a patchwork of state employment laws that show no signs of slowing down. The employment law landscape continues to evolve rapidly, presenting health care employers with new compliance challenges. Outlined below are just a few of the key legal trends impacting the health care HR landscape this year.
    Paid Family Leave Programs and Expansion
    State-level paid family and medical leave programs are growing in popularity across…
    Continue Reading Legal Trends Impacting Health Care Human Resources in 2026