Supraspinatus is a health law blog sponsored by the New York State Bar Association's Health Law Section. Supraspinatus is presently in a six month demonstration period which began May 22, 2007. (For those interested, the supraspinatus is an obscure muscle that attaches the top of the humerus (upper arm bone) to the medial scapula (shoulder blade). It is responsible for the first 15 degrees of motion of the upper arm - - such as when one raises a hand to ask a question. The motion is completed beyond 15 degrees primarily by the deltoid muscles.)
The purpose of Supraspinatus is to provide timely notice of signficant events and developments affecting practitioners of health care law in New York. Blog posts may cover subjects ranging from new legislation to court decisions to agency interpretations. Topics are selected by contributing authors based on personal choice for the purpose of sharing knowledge about, exploring, and illustrating interrelated (and in some cases interdisciplinary) aspects of current news events and the latest thinking in public policy, law and/or regulation.
Links provided from this NYSBA entity site are intended to be functional and accurate at the time of posting. We do not update or otherwise maintain links. Authors strive for accuracy and directness when including links and make reasonable efforts to post directly to the relevant material cited.
The posts individually, any part of or all together, do not represent expertise or legal advice of any kind.
Volunteer contributors to Supraspinatus are:
Paul Gillan - Paul Gillan is Legal Counsel in the legal department of Capital District Physicians' Health Plan, Inc. in Albany, New York. He is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Baltimore School of Law. Before going in-house with CDPHP, Paul worked six years with the Albany firm Iseman, Cunningham, Riester & Hyde, LLP, and three years with the Albany firm Hinman Straub, P.C., and has provided counsel to a wide range of health care providers and payors.
Marcia Smith - Marcia Smith is a Partner with the Albany firm Iseman, Cunningham, Riester & Hyde, LLP. She practices in the health care area and has extensive experience handling regulatory, corporate and transactional matters for a wide range of health care clients, including health care systems, hospitals, physicians and insurers. Marcia has significant experience in the areas of corporate compliance, tax-exempt financing, Medicare and Medicaid billing matters, tax exemption, and regulatory affairs. Ms. Smith is a graduate of the University of Minnnesota at Minneapolis/St. Paul and Albany Law School of Union University and served as an officer in the United States Navy, achieving the rank of lieutenant.
Joan Shipman - Joan Shipman is a solo practitioner in New York concentrating in matters where the life sciences meet law and business. Joan is a graduate of Connecticut College and New York Law School. More recently, she has studied life sciences as a non matriculating student at Connecticut College. Prior to establishing her own practice, Joan worked for eleven years in the health care industry as a New York HMO in-house staff counsel handling certain real estate, contracts for goods and services (excluding participating provider contracts), and litigation matters as well as other corporate generalist matters. Joan volunteered to join with the other authors in creating Supraspinatus for the sole purpose of expanding the body of knowledge relating to positions of the Bar Association and the subject matter of the Health Law section.
Joan reminds those readers outside of New York that this area of the law, while impacting New York practitioners, is global in nature. While her posts are presented in the context of various applicable laws and regulations of New York State (and the United States), references in her posts that link by cited reference or directly by Internet access to commentary or reports about the laws or legal traditions of other countries are offered here for general discussions of ideas or trends in order to help fulfill Supraspinatus blog goals. Legal matters arising in the context of fundamental human rights, the dignity and worth of the human person, the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, the various conditions for justice and mutual respect to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom (see the United Nations charter) are both of universal and particular (local) interest, to practitioners of health care law in New York and more generally lawyers practicing under the rule of law.
Tricia Asaro - Tricia Asaro is a shareholder in the Albany office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP. She concentrates her practice in the areas of health care and governmental affairs. Tricia has extensive experience representing health plans in business negotiations, regulatory compliance matters and corporate governance issues. She also has significant expertise in health care transactions, particularly regulatory approval of changes in control of health care entities. Tricia is a graduate of Amherst College and received her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School.
Wendy H. Sheinberg - Wendy H. Sheinberg is the founder of Law Offices of Sheinberg and Associates, PLLC, with offices in Garden City, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Ms. Sheinberg's primary areas of practice are Guardianship, Elder Law, Trust and Estate Planning and Trust and Estate Administration. She has been certified by the National Elder Law Foundation as a Certified Elder Law Attorney and has completed the Guardianship Training at the Samuel Sadin Institute on Law of the Brookdale Center on Aging at Hunter College.