Health Care Payments Practice

The Payments & Fintech Group at Alston & Bird —comprised of more than 20 attorneys— is a leading legal resource for the payments industry, with advisors based in the United States and Europe working on engagements worldwide.

Depth and Breadth Where Health Care and Payments Intersect

Members of the Alston & Bird team have established themselves as leaders in the health care payments sector by demonstrating a unique understanding of both the payments/banking and benefit laws regulating such arrangements. Recent engagements demonstrating the depth and breadth of our experience in the health care industry include:

• Advising numerous health insurers, third-party administrators and employers as to the use of debit and stored value card products in the delivery of health (and other employee benefit) programs.
• Advising issuers and insurers as to the ERISA, HIPAA and other federal and state law compliance issues related to the issuance of cards for health, disability and transit benefits.
• Representing networks, multiple issuers of health care payment cards, and other participants in the health care space in the evaluation of the Durbin Amendment and Regulation II on HSA, FSA and other qualified employee benefit programs.
• Representing the world’s largest payment network and related issuers in developing a strategic response relating to the U.S. government’s adoption of EFT standards under HIPAA and the HITECH Act.
• Advising a leading business-to-business provider of innovative electronic payment solutions in structuring a business model allowing payment via virtual cards of health care claims on behalf of health benefit plans and plan sponsors, and as facilitated through third-party administrators, insurance companies, and other health care claim participants.
• Representing a private equity firm as its special health benefit and payment card counsel in a $320 million acquisition of a health benefits card business. The target supplies benefits administration, debit cards, and account processing and payment services to consumers, health care providers and policy payers linked to consumer-directed health care accounts.
• Advising financial institutions and third-party administrators in evaluating and pursuing strategic opportunities with health insurance exchanges.

Our Team

• A pioneer in health care payments and health care benefit cards and their intersection with the consumer-directed health care arena and HIPAA privacy, who has worked closely with private industry as well as U.S. government institutions in advising upon tax-favored health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). 
• A former deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• A lawyer with more than 14 years of operational experience as a business person at a leading retailer of financial services who now applies both her business experience and legal expertise on behalf of payments clients, with a particular focus on electronic payment systems and products, including credit and debit cards, stored value/prepaid card products, health benefit cards and money transmitter regulations.
• A former nine-term member of Congress and president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, who was a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and member of the Subcommittee on Health.
• A corporate and M&A attorney who has advised clients in the acquisition of health care payments businesses and entry into the health care payments market, including emerging CDHC and health insurance exchanges.
• A former official of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, who served various roles over the course of a 15-year tenure, including as the responsible officer for the banking applications and enforcement functions, as well as the founding director of the Retail Payments Risk Forum, where he worked to identify, understand and mitigate emerging risks in retail payments systems.
• The United States’ leading authority on retail and wholesale payment systems, products and services related to card-based products, and ACH and check-based products — a trusted advisor to one of the world’s largest card networks and the United States’ oldest and most innovative payments association and processor.
• A health and welfare benefit plan litigator who also serves as a member of the Board of Editors of the Benefits and Compensation Law Alert.

To learn more, contact any of our Payments Group partners below: