¾Alumni Spotlight: Keavney Klein Senior Counsel - Kaiser Permanente ¾What’s New with You? In this issue SUMMER 2025
SUMMER 2025 ALUM SPOTLIGHT Interview with Keavney Klein Senior Counsel – Kaiser Permanente, former attorney with Alston & Bird’s Health Care Legislative & Public Policy Group Keavney was recently interviewed by Elinor Hiller, partner in Alston & Bird’s Health Care Legislative & Public Policy Group.
SUMMER 2025 Clinical Laboratory Association, and I didn’t know anything about labs or anything about Medicare. Peter was a great teacher, very patient, very kind, very funny, and made what otherwise could have been very boring work fun. We were doing investigations, combing through claims, defending different organizations that were perhaps under investigation at times. It was a great introduction to some of that work in a pathway I didn’t go down ultimately, but Peter was really wonderful. And then Tim has a very different style. He knows a lot of people. He is a policy lawyer. Whereas Peter was a real sort of regulatory lawyer and really got into the nitty-gritty, Tim had a different approach and more of a bird’s-eye and longer-term view in terms of what was important for his clients. I learned a lot from him as well. Q: What inspired your transition from private practice to your in-house role? Nothing about my work at Alston & Bird drove me away. I had a truly great experience. It was just the opportunity that befell me. In early 2012, I got a random outreach from a person who would end up being a colleague at Kaiser who said, “Hey, do you Q: What initially drew you to the health care practice at Alston & Bird as an associate? I went to law school with the notion that I would be in public policy in some capacity and had no intention of working at a law firm at all. During my on-campus interviewing, in learning about the firms and opportunities, I changed my mind because I met Colin Roskey and had a fantastic interview and learned a ton about Alston & Bird. He was my first introduction to the firm and made a tremendous impression. I was lucky enough to get a summer offer in 2007 and had a great experience. We were one of the last big classes of summer associates, and I was able to do a lot of meaningful work that I really enjoyed. Not the least of which was working with other associates and knowing that it was a great community, including people like you and Rudy Missmar, who were a class ahead of us. That was my initial introduction to Alston & Bird. It was a great time. Q: Can you share a memorable experience? I would say that the top two that come to mind were working with Peter Kazon and the inimitable Tim Trysla. Peter had this long-time client, the American
SUMMER 2025 want to work for Kaiser Permanente and move to Oakland?” Ultimately, it turned into the right move for me. I did a lot of research, a lot of talking to people who had worked with Kaiser Permanente, and learned that it is an amazing organization. I’ll have been there 13 years in October, in a policy job for an organization that has the mission of caring for people all across the entire spectrum of humanity, from birth to death, and creating affordable care and high-value and value-based care. Q: Is there anything else you’d want to add on what excites you about your current role and Kaiser in particular? Every person I work with at Kaiser Permanente is there because of the mission. Everyone wants to create a better health care system that serves people in an affordable way and in a way that really optimizes their ability to live a healthy life. And it’s not just words. Every person I talk to, every person I’ve met in my 13 years there, believes that. It’s really a wonderful group of people who are working toward a common mission and fighting the good fight. Q: Describe how at Kaiser the legal team and the government relations team are structured, which side of that you sit on, or whether you see it as one big team. And how does your legal training influence the way you’re able to work on the government relations side as well as the legal side? They are different teams, which confuses people internally because they think we’re all lawyers, right? Yes, we are, but we have a particular approach and a particular focus, and it’s really not advising internally about how to understand the law, how to implement the law, and how to comply with the law. We’re on the front end of the lawmaking process, the policymaking process, in that we are watching at all times the federal government, and we have state roles too. We operate in eight states and D.C. as Kaiser Permanente. We also have a new part of the enterprise called Risant Health that operates two organizations, one in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina. Our job is to understand and see the trends in policymaking and get ahead of them with internally vetted, understood, and agreed-upon policy positions and then go and influence the outcomes of the policymaking process. My legal
SUMMER 2025 background has a lot to do with understanding in greater detail the programs that are funding, in a lot of cases, the care that we’re giving to our members—namely, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act—and operating in compliance with regulations promulgated by governments, the commercial space, ERISA, and all those laws and regulations that are fundamental to how we have to operate as a health care organization. Knowing how to navigate the process of creating and amending those laws is critical, and that’s what our team does. Q: What would you say are the most pressing legal or regulatory challenges facing the industry? The most obvious one and the one that everyone is talking about is the passage of H.R. 1, the reconciliation package that was signed by the President, and what to do now. Cuts to different pieces of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act [ACA] are things that we’re going to have to wrestle with as an industry for the coming months and years. It’s the biggest change in federal health policy since the ACA was passed. The main things that we’re thinking about are how will our states deal with the changes to the provider tax pieces in the Medicaid section of the bill and the statedirected payments piece in the Medicaid space. How will our states take those new limitations and implement those in a way that can make their budgets continue to work? What we foresee and what is predicted by CBO [Congressional Budget Office] and other analysts is that there will be a pretty significant drop in coverage because of these provisions. That’s obviously top of mind in what our CEO and all our senior executive leaders care about. My team is advising on that. We are working closely with our legal and compliance partners on the implementation and actual operationalization of the provisions. Q: What skills and experiences from your time in private practice have proven most valuable in your current role? I think every day about the work that we did when I was at Alston & Bird. At Kaiser Permanente, we have a number of different legal entities under one umbrella that have different points of view, and we bring them together and build consensus. It reminds me all the time of the work I did with Tim Trysla on the imaging coalition, AMIC. I was like a baby lawyer at the time, but I had a lot of opportunities to work with and across organizations with different points of view and try to come to a policy consensus. I do that every day in my job now, and Tim can take credit for my success at Kaiser Permanente. Q: What advice would you give to young attorneys considering a career in health care law or government relations? I would say push your own boundaries of what you think you’re comfortable with. I surely would not be where I am today had I not changed my thinking
SUMMER 2025 around whether to go and try working at a law firm. There are lots of different ways to be in health care law and policy. There are lots of different roles. Be open to taking different pathways and seeing where they lead you. Q: How do you balance the demands of your legal role with your personal life and wellness and find time to focus on other things as well? It’s not easy. I have two little kids and sometimes my stepson with us who’s older, a teenager. Fortunately, I work at an organization and with people who understand that work is not life. Work enables life, and we have a very good work-life balance at Kaiser Permanente. I live on the East Coast, and I work with people on the West Coast. It’s a fair assumption that I’m working after the kids go to bed because they’re wrapping up their day over there and I need to be responsive, but there’s a total respect for taking time off, taking vacation, making sure that you actually stay on vacation when you’re supposed to. It’s really important for everyone in their life and in their career to be able to have that downtime and be able to step away. Q: Is there anything you want to share about a professional accomplishment that you’re particularly proud of and why you were able to get it done? I think about that work I did years ago to help CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] understand the value of telehealth for Medicare beneficiaries. I like to think of it as being fairly foundational to where things are now. I think that telehealth policy is where it is, in part, because Kaiser Permanente was doing a lot of advocacy around letting Medicare Advantage [MA] plans offer telehealth to members because it was a good way to get care, especially during the pandemic. We worked closely with the Senate Finance Committee staff on that language, and ultimately that was a great outcome: to be able to let MA plans do telehealth in a way that really benefits members. Q: Anything else you want to share about summer plans, long-term dreams, shortterm dreams, or just what you’re planning to do to relax in August? We actually spend a fair amount of time in New Orleans year to year because my stepson lives with his mom and stepdad there during the school year and here in D.C. with us in the summer. He’s heading back to start school in mid-August, and we will be going down. I don’t know that it’ll be downtime, but it will be a fun time in a fun place that we really love visiting.
Sarah Babcock (2008, Environment & Land Use): Sarah was recently promoted to Director of the Saturday Lawyer and Eviction Defense Programs at Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation. Having participated in Saturday Lawyer regularly when she was at the firm, this is a true full- circle moment. What is your dream job? My dream job would be anything that allowed me to travel extensively! Travel agent, tour guide, etc. Lydia Chastain (2007, Construction & Government Contracts): In early January, Lydia made the switch from the U.S. Department of Labor Solicitor’s Office to private practice. She is now a partner at the labor and employment firm Lee Meier Law. It has been a great transition, and she’s excited for the new challenge. Elizabeth Helmer (2007, Litigation & Trial): What is your dream job? Movie director. Faith Myers (1996, Health Care Compliance) What is your dream job? National Geographic Photographer and Luxury Hotel Critic Blair Perkins (2014, Litigation & Trial): Blair’s previous company, Risk Transfer Partners, was acquired by CRC Group in March, where Blair now runs a team as a Senior Broker. Dara Redler (1991, Corporate Litigation – Product Liability): Dara’s role at H&R Block expanded to Chief Legal & Administrative Officer and now includes legal, government relations, The Tax Institute (regulatory, industry relations), enterprise risk management, and information security. Glenn Viers (1988): After 32 years, Glenn has retired as Vice President & General Counsel of the Hillstone Restaurant Group Inc. He was recently appointed as a Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Department of Labor. What is your dream job? My dream job would to be a fishing guide on the Madison River in Montana by day and the Sommelier at French Laundry at night. SUMMER 2025 With You?
Alston & Bird Job Postings Holly Hawkins Saporito Alumni Chair holly.saporito@alston.com +1 404 881 4402 Candace Spencer Marketing Director candace.spencer@alston.com +1 202 239 3150 Update Information We want to hear from you. Share what’s new with your fellow alumni. New job or title? Relocation? Family news? Let Candace Spencer know. Visit our LinkedIn alumni group to connect with other alumni and remain up to date on firm activities IP & Licensing Attorney – STMicroelectronics – located in TX – Internal Contact: Scott Stevens Job Description Link (STMicroelectronics) SUMMER 2025
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