Stephanie Webster represents many of the country’s leading hospitals and health systems as well as many other health care clients in cutting-edge administrative and federal court litigation contesting adverse government agency action. Clients across the health care industry also turn to Stephanie for her strategic advice on complex payment and compliance issues and high-impact Medicare and other federal program rules and decisions.
Stephanie draws on her experience in both private practice and government service to assist clients on matters challenging agency action in Medicare, Medicaid and other federal agency programs under the Administrative Procedure Act and similar statutory provisions.
Stephanie led a team to victory before the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark case invalidating substantive changes in Medicare disproportionate share hospital payment policy without proper notice and comment under the unique procedural requirements of the Medicare statute (Allina Health Services v. Sebelius). She also spent several years as an attorney for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Division of the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Stephanie has been repeatedly recognized as a leading health care lawyer by Law360, Chambers USA and Nightingale’s Healthcare News, and twice as a litigation “trailblazer” by the National Law Journal.
Experience
- Prevailed in significant D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court appeal affirming the invalidation of a Medicare policy standard involving Medicare Disproportionate Share payments adopted without proper notice and comment (Allina Health Services v. Sebelius).*
- Represented Sentara Healthcare in a federal lawsuit in which the D.C. District Court recently overturned the denial of Medicare bad debt reimbursement that was calculated by hospitals using 3rd party credit reporting services. (Sentara Hospitals et al v. Becerra).
- Represented Baylor Scott & White Health Plan in a matter concerning the lawful calculation of the Medicare program’s share of the health plan’s costs of physician and supplier services furnished to Medicare enrollees. The successful court action challenged an adverse agency decision concerning the question of whether services associated with “carrier-paid claims” should be included as covered services in the apportionment ratio used to determine the Medicare share.
- Successfully represented medical device company Alcresta Therapeutics in a first-of-its kind federal court challenge to an agency decision denying proper medical coding culminating in a rare D.C. Circuit injunction mandating coding.*
- Represented Medicare Advantage health plan in overturning agency denial of service area expansion.*
- Represented hundreds of hospitals (including argument) in the lead federal court case invalidating as arbitrary and capricious the 0.2 percent reduction to hospital payment rates made in 2014 in connection with the “two-midnight rule” (Shands v. Burwell).*
- Served as co-counsel in thousands of appeals for more than 700 hospitals in successful challenge to a Medicare budget neutrality factor accounting for the impact of the wage index rural floor, including the lead case that successfully overturned the government’s erroneous methodology and led to the largest-ever Medicare litigation settlement (Cape Cod Hospital v. Sebelius).*
- Served as co-counsel in first case ever decided by a federal district court requiring the correction of systemic errors and omissions in the calculation of the Medicare Part A/SSI fraction used for determining hospital DSH payments (Baystate Medical Center v. Leavitt).*
- Represented large academic medical centers on compliance issues relating to the 340B
*Experience prior to joining Ropes & Gray