The U.S. government, as well as state and local governments, procures many health care-related goods and services. Government contracts and procurements can be a significant source of revenue. Those procurements also introduce into contracting myriad laws, rules, and regulations that are particular to the field of government contracts and procurement.
The Health Care and Life Sciences practices are supported by the Government Contracts and Procurements practice group, which has more than 20 years of experience in government contracts and procurement counseling and litigation. We provide organizations with the latest information—and compliance methods—relating to the ever-changing rules and regulations for government contractors.
Our Government Contracts and Procurements Group regularly assists the firm’s health care and life sciences clients with the following:
- The bidding process and proposal preparation
- Bid protests (both prosecution and defense)
- Drafting and negotiating contracts
- Contract administration
- Requests for equitable adjustment and claims
- Services Contract Act
- Contract compliance audits and voluntary disclosures
- Terminations for default and convenience
- Cooperative agreements and grants
- Veterans’ Administration leases
- Contract novation
- Ethics training
- Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) compliance
- Socio-economic compliance programs
- General Services Administration schedules
- Organizational conflict-of-interest issues
- Mitigation plans
- Small and small-disadvantaged business plans
- Assertion and defense of Small Business Administration protests, including size, affiliation, and mentoring issues
- Wage and hour disputes
- Contractors’ trade secrets and data rights claims
- Disputes involving compliance issues, such as cost accounting, the Procurement Integrity Act, and the Truth in Negotiation Act
- Procurement fraud investigations and prosecutions
- Responses to Inspector General and other government investigations
- Disputes arising from subcontracts and teaming agreements
With specific experience in the Department of Defense’s TRICARE Management Activity (now the Defense Health Agency), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Department of Homeland Security, Epstein Becker Green opens the door to government contracts by bringing government contracting and procurement knowledge and advice to its clients.
Representative Matters
- We successfully defended four protests and three appeals that resulted in the award of a $1.1 billion state pharmacy benefit management (PBM) services contract to the firm’s client. Under the contract, the client will provide PBM services to more than 200,000 state employees, retirees, and their dependents. After a nine-day hearing, the Maryland State Board of Contract Appeals issued a unanimous 94-page opinion in our client’s favor.
- We obtained a permanent injunction for a health care provider against a competitor’s $225 million contract for health care services.