Group Practice with Neal Goldstein

In this episode of Group Practice, host Neal Goldstein interviews Dr. Lowell Weil, Executive Chairman of Balance Health and formerly the CEO of Weil Foot & Ankle Institute a 53-physician podiatry group founded by his father Dr. Lowell Weil Sr.  Dr. Weil discusses the five practice settings for podiatrists: solo/small practices, orthopedic groups, hospital systems, large independent groups, and...

In this episode of Group Practice, host Neal Goldstein welcomes his partner, and leader of PFS’s labor and employment practice, Nora Walsh, for a deep dive into the evolving world of physician non-competes. They explore the common law foundations – reasonableness in time and geography, and protectable interests – and how Illinois’s landmark Fifield case added consideration requir...

This episode of Group Practice with Neal Goldstein provides an overview of the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS), a federal fraud and abuse law enacted in 1972 that applies to all federal healthcare programs. Unlike the Stark Law, AKS is an intent-based statute that prohibits knowingly giving or receiving remuneration to induce referrals for federally reimbursable healthcare items or services. The landm...

In this episode of Group Practice, Neal Goldstein interviews Dr. Richard Harris, founding member and longtime CEO of Uropartners, about building one of the nation’s premier independent urology groups and the leadership principles behind its success.  Dr. Harris recounts the challenging two-year process of merging 11 competing practices into a unified organization—overcoming distrust, strong person...

In this episode of Group Practice , host Neal Goldstein explains the federal Stark Law, the prohibition on physician self-referrals, one of the two major healthcare fraud and abuse laws governing physicians. He describes Stark as a complicated but important statute enacted in 1989 and expanded in 1993 to cover ten “designated health services” (DHS), including imaging, physical therapy, durable med...

In this episode of Group Practice, Neal Goldstein explores the business case for physician group consolidation, distinguishing it from mere aggregation. True consolidation, he explains, involves full integration into a unified group practice—legally and operationally—rather than loosely affiliated practices sharing ancillaries.  Neal outlines five primary advantages: (1) central business office ef...

In this episode of the Group Practice Podcast, Host Neal Goldstein interviews his brother, Dr. Wayne Goldstein, founder of Illinois Bone & Joint Institute (IBJI), which grew from 4 surgeons in 1 location in 1991 to 160 across 40 locations today.  Dr. Goldstein talks about obstacles he faced early on in his career which motivated him to build an independent, physician-led musculoskeletal group....

In this episode, Neal Goldstein explains how the federal Stark Law (physician self-referral law) shapes the legal definition of a group practice. Stark prohibits physicians from referring Medicare or Medicaid patients for designated health services to entities with which they have a financial relationship—unless an exception applies. The most common exception is the in-office ancillary services ex...

In this premier episode of Group Practice with Neal Goldstein, Neal shares his background and how he got his start representing physician groups. He also discusses how he developed his expertise in the federal Stark law, which led to him teaching a law school course specifically on Stark. Neal lays out what to expect in future episodes, and explains why he chose the name Group Practice for the pod...