Robert H. Iseman

Robert H. Iseman, a native of Albany, has represented both institutional and individual healthcare providers and health insurers for more than 40 years.

As a partner in the Health Services Practice Group, Bob provides a full range of legal services for multi-provider healthcare systems, accountable care organizations (ACOs), hospitals, physician practice groups, health maintenance organizations and other health care providers and third-party payors. Areas of representation include corporate governance and compliance issues, internal compliance investigations, fraud and abuse, integrated healthcare delivery systems and related antitrust issues, medical staff relationships, peer review, risk management and related litigation.

Throughout the state of New York and the region, Bob also provides legal services to several multi-hospital healthcare systems with religious affiliations. His experience in representing these healthcare systems has involved the interrelationship between the civil law of New York and other states and the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church.

Bob has had extensive experience and success in a broad range of complex practice areas, as demonstrated by his listing for many years in four separate practice categories (commercial litigation, healthcare law, antitrust litigation, and regulatory enforcement litigation) of the peer-rated Best Lawyers in America.

His practice has resulted in a number of important “firsts” in the state of New York.

• Bob was one of the first to use the legal status of “member” as defined in the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law to create multi-hospital systems governed by a single parent corporation.
• Bob negotiated the “active/passive parent rules” with the New York State Department of Health in 1989. These rules have since become the foundational building blocks of virtually all multi-hospital systems in New York.
• Using the active/passive parent rules and the membership model, Bob played a key role in the creation and formation of some of the largest and most successful healthcare systems in the state of New York, including St. Peter’s Health Partners, Catholic Health Services of Long Island, and the New York-based health system components of national, religiously sponsored healthcare delivery systems such as Ascension Health.
• In the area of managed care, Bob was a founder of Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan, one of the first IPA-model HMOs in the state of New York.
• Bob has been actively involved in the management of antitrust issues that confront healthcare providers and healthcare delivery systems. Bob created and formed Long Island Health Network, the first clinically integrated network of hospitals in the United States under the joint DOJ/FTC antitrust guidelines published in 1996.
• Bob was asked by the NYS Department of Health to develop the rules applicable to intrastate and interstate obligated group financing for hospitals, which was previously prohibited in New York, and then closed one of the first and largest obligated group financings in the state under the rules he helped draft.

As partner in the Commercial Litigation Practice Group, Bob has been engaged in a broad range of complex commercial litigation matters for various clients, including many nationally known corporations. The litigated disputes involved such areas of the law as antitrust, including defense of class actions; directors’ and officers’ liability claims; securities fraud; wrongful discharge; defamation; real estate transactions; environmental contamination; insurance coverage disputes; breach of contract; and personal injury.

In the specific area of antitrust, Bob has managed the issues raised by a wide variety of proposed mergers and acquisitions among healthcare providers, including the management of formal investigations initiated by the FTC. He has also successfully defended large class-action lawsuits seeking relief under the antitrust laws.

Bob has led and managed many internal compliance investigations for a broad array of healthcare providers. These engagements have included frequent interaction and negotiation with various state and federal prosecutorial and enforcement agencies, as well as the preparation and submission of self-disclosures under both state and federal law.

Bob has conducted special seminars and presentations for various clients and professional associations, such as the New York State Bar Association, Albany County Bar Association, Hospital Education and Research Fund of the Healthcare Association of New York State and the Healthcare Trustees of the State of New York. Topics addressed include corporate governance and compliance issues, civil litigation tactics and techniques, patient confidentiality, incident and misconduct reporting, the legal implications of medical staff peer review and the fiduciary duty of board members.

Bob has served as counsel to a special New York State Bar Association Action Unit studying reform of the state’s court system and the judicial selection process. He was elected as a fellow of the New York Bar Foundation. He is also a former chair of the New York State Bar Committee on Constitution and Bylaws and the Legislative Policy Committee.