Robert D Belfort

Practice Areas

With nearly 30 years of experience in health care law, Manatt Health Partner Robert Belfort advises health care organizations on regulatory compliance and transactional matters. His clients include hospital systems, other health care providers, health insurers, managed care organizations, accountable care organizations (ACOs), pharmacy chains, IT vendors, health care industry investors and trade associations. Bob handles a wide variety of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. He specializes in transactions that raise complex regulatory issues and necessitate sophisticated health care due diligence.

Bob helps health insurers ensure compliance with federal and state rules and regulations. Organizations with privacy concerns turn to Bob for advice on managing health information, drafting privacy policies, conducting internal gap analyses and responding to complaints and privacy breaches.

Bob also counsels insurers and providers that are establishing ACOs and other value-based contracting arrangements and drafts and negotiates managed care and accountable care contracts.

To proactively avoid fraud and abuse, Bob provides advice on structuring transactions and conducting business in compliance with the Anti-Kickback Statute, the Stark law, participation and billing requirements for Medicare and Medicaid, professional licensing rules, and medicine and fee-splitting restrictions, making him a highly versatile resource to his clients.

Professional Memberships

Admitted to practice in the state of New York

Member, New York State Bar Association

Member, American Health Lawyers Association

Publications

Co-author, “How Legal Changes in Response to COVID-19 Can Improve Access to Community Behavioral Health,” California Health Care Foundation, February 3, 2021.

Quoted, “Hospitals Tackling Virus May Need More Than Brief Privacy Waiver,” Bloomberg Law, March 19, 2020.

Quoted, “Interoperability Rule Exposes Gaps in Protecting Privacy,” Modern Healthcare, March 13, 2020.

Co-author, “Paying for Value in Behavioral Health: What California Can Learn from Other States’ Medicaid Programs,” California Health Care Foundation, February 2020.

Co-author, “Risky Business? Sharing Data With Entities Not Covered by HIPAA,” eHealth Initiative, March 8, 2019.

Cited, “Health Plan Questions about Sharing Information on Members with Opioid Use Disorder,” Center for Health Care Strategies, March 2019.

Co-author, “Overcoming Data-Sharing Challenges in the Opioid Epidemic: Integrating Substance Use Disorder Treatment in Primary Care,” California Health Care Foundation, July 2018.

Co-author, “Sharing Behavioral Health Information Amid the Opioid Crisis,” eHealth Initiative and Foundation, June 2018.