Peter Martin concentrates his practice on healthcare law, representing hospitals, long-term care facilities, physicians and other facilities and providers facing complex regulatory and contractual issues throughout Massachusetts and beyond. Peter’s clients include ambulatory care facilities, hospices, community health centers and home health agencies as well as social workers, counselors and psychologists.
His healthcare clients turn to Peter – a former in-house healthcare lawyer – with a wide range of concerns, including licensure, professional discipline, reimbursement with 3rd-party payors and breaches of security and privacy. Peter provides amiable, problem-solving counsel and representation concerning the following:
- Corporate compliance, counseling and contract negotiations
- Fraud and abuse and regulatory investigations
- Managed care issues
- Hiring and practice acquisitions on behalf buyers and sellers
- Health information privacy and security
- Transactional and operational issues
Peter also counsels tax-exempt organizations on governance, compliance and exemption issues, leveraging his years of experience and depth of subject matter knowledge. “Clients know that I appreciate value and efficiency,” he adds. “I’m practical, too, candidly recommending when a client has gotten the best negotiated deal they’re going to get, asking them ‘How much more do you want to spend?’ Let’s solve the problem and take this off everyone’s desk.”
Before Bowditch
Peter was Operations Counsel for Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation, representing hospitals and other Columbia providers in New England, Ohio, North Carolina and portions of Florida. He was also Lead Attorney in the Health Law Practice Group at Peabody & Arnold, Boston, as well as Legal Counsel at MetroWest Medical Center, Framingham.
Besides work
Peter likes to hike and travel with his wife. “We hiked throughout Wales end to end…and plan to do it again.” Current reading? The Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series.
Affiliations
- Member, American Health Lawyers Association
- Member, Massachusetts and New Hampshire Bar Associations
- Member, Healthcare Financial Management Association
- Member, International Association of Privacy Professionals
- Director, Family Health Center of Worcester
- Clerk, 495/MetroWest Corridor Partnership
- Director and Clerk, Sudbury Valley Trustees; Member, Executive and Land Protection Committees
- Director, Worcester Community Action Council; Member, Executive and Personnel Committees
- Member, Northborough Community Preservation Committee
- Chair, Princeton Alumni Schools Committee for central Massachusetts and northeast Connecticut
- Member, National Association of College and University Attorneys
Previous
- Past member and Vice Chair, Massachusetts Bar Association Health Law Section Council
- Past member and Chair of the Board of Trustees, Saint Joseph Preparatory High School
Articles + Talks
Articles
- “Disclosing PHI Upon the Sale of a Medical Practice,” Bowditch, August 30, 2023
- “Legal Consult: Physician, Curb Thyself!,” Worcester Medicine, December 2022
- “Caretakers of the Elderly: Risk, Neglect and Injury,” Worcester Medicine, May/June 2022
- “States of Emergency,” Worcester Medicine, January/February 2022
- “Supreme Court Rules on COVID-19 Vaccine/Testing Requirements – Big Business Mandate Blocked, Health Care Mandate Revived,” Bowditch, January 14, 2022
- “MassHealth’s Uncivil Action,” Worcester Medicine, November/December 2021
- “New CMS Regulations Mandating Vaccination of Health Care Facility Staff,” Bowditch, November 5, 2021
- “Constitutional Haberdashery,” Worcester Medicine, September/October 2021
- “Re-Opening During the Half-Life of a Pandemic,” Worcester Medicine, July/August 2021
- “Certifiable – A Medical Records Story,” Worcester Medicine, March/April 2021
- “Psychosurgery – Qu’est-Ce Que C’est?,” Worcester Medicine, November/December 2020
- “Restructuring Practices the Legal Way,” Worcester Medicine, July/August 2020
- “Price Transparency for Whose Benefit?,” Worcester Medicine, January/February 2020
- “Teaching as Healing,” Worcester Medicine, November/December 2019
- “Data Privacy Doctrine in Motion?” Worcester Medicine, September/October 2019
- “HPID: The confused birth, troubled life and untimely death of a federal regulation,” Worcester Medicine, May/June 2019
- “The Eldred Case: A Troubled Encounter of Law and Science,” Worcester Medicine, November/December 2018
- “The Duty of Care and the Quest for Payment,” Worcester Medicine, September/October 2018
- “The Uncooperative Patient and the Least-Restrictive Protection Approach,” Worcester Medicine, July/August 2018
- “Hospital Mergers – A New Landscape,” Worcester Medicine, January/February 2018
- “Medical Marijuana Laws – Some Head-Spinning Conflicts,” Worcester Medicine, July/August 2017
-
“New Mid-level Practitioner Regulations,” Worcester Medicine, May/June 2017
-
“Affordable Care Act – From Repeal and Replace to Regulatory Reform?” Worcester Medicine, March/April 2017
-
“A Macro Look at MACRA,” Worcester Medicine, September/October 2016
-
“False Claims Act Liability – It’s a Material World,” Worcester Medicine, July/August 2016
-
“The Future of Community Hospitals in Massachusetts,” Worcester Medicine, May/June 2016
-
“Privacy Breaches and Invasions,” Worcester Medicine, March/April 2016
-
“The Fairness of Summary Suspensions,” Worcester Medicine, January/February 2016
-
“The Apparent Authority of a Doctor in Hospital Clothing,” Worcester Medicine, September/October 2015
-
“Conditions, Preconditions and the False Claims Act,” Worcester Medicine, May/June 2015
-
“Coordinated Care Versus Market Power,” Worcester Medicine, March/April 2015
-
“Losing Medicare Enrollment,” Worcester Medicine, January/February 2015
-
“The Hand-Off,” Worcester Medicine, November/December 2014
-
“The Legal Perils of Methadone Treatment,” Worcester Medicine, September/October 2014
-
“Health Care Proxy Law Clarified,” Bowditch & Dewey, February 3, 2014
-
“The Affordable Care Act: A Law of Unintended Consequences?” Bowditch & Dewey, October 22, 2013
-
“HIPAA, Again,” Bowditch & Dewey, March 27, 2013
-
“What’s the benefit in a benefit Corporation?” Bowditch & Dewey, December 14, 2012
Talks
- “Tax Exempt Organizations from Start to Finish,” National Business Institute, June 20, 2016
- “Health Insurance Reform – It’s Live,” Bowditch & Dewey Breakfast @ Bowditch series, Worcester, Massachusetts, October 29, 2015
- “What Does Being a Fiduciary Mean?” Eliot Community Health Services, Lexington, Massachusetts, October 18, 2015
- “Financial and Legal Oversight”, Jericho Road Worcester Leadership Connection seminar, Worcester, MA, September 30, 2015
- Health Care Reform, North Central Chamber of Commerce, Fitchburg, MA, May 21, 2014
- Affordable Care Act, Bowditch & Dewey seminar in conjunction with EBS Foran, Milford, MA, June 5, 2013
- “Financial and Legal Oversight”, Jericho Road Worcester Leadership Connection seminar, Worcester, MA, January 29, 2013
- “Characteristics of Effective Boards”, 12th Annual Southern New England Community Action Conference, MASSCAP, Falmouth, MA, June 21, 2011
- “IRS Interim Report on Colleges and Universities”, Colleges of Worcester Consortium Chief Financial Officers Forum, Worcester, MA, November 17, 2010
Bar Admissions
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
Education
- J.D., Boston University School of Law
- M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School
- A.B., Princeton University
Helping adapt to changes in the Massachusetts Medicaid program
Peter has been on the front lines of reforms to the Medicaid program in Massachusetts, helping healthcare clients constantly adjust and comply with fast-paced changes. For example, he is forming Accountable Care Organizations for physician practices and hospitals, which are required to provide the whole range of services, including behavioral health. “When this process involves community partners, I’ve assisted several community partners with negotiating collaborative agreements.” Peter’s client is awaiting selection and finalizing of a contract, having created an entity and made its proposal to MassHealth.
Helping a non-profit find a way to accommodate unforeseen changes
Several charitable and educational non-profits rely on Peter for legal counsel, including a land conservancy. “The group’s mission is focused on three river watersheds in central Massachusetts, stemming from a bequest in the 1970s for the purchase of fee interests of land in one town.” The gift has grown significantly, and the town has, too, and environmental science has evolved over the past 50 years. “In order to protect more land and still serve the bequest’s purpose,” Peter noted, “I drafted and submitted a Deviation Complaint to the court for relief and negotiated with the Attorney General’s Office for its OK.” The Attorney General’s office assented to the requested relief, which the court subsequently granted, so that now the group will use its resources for land protection and stewardship projects with many fewer restrictions. “This approach is significant for other non-profits as a practical way to accommodate the fact that times, science and other conditions might have moved on since the terms of an original bequest.”
Helping a long-term care provider expand its continuum of care
Health care providers often seek ways to increase financial stability by diversifying their lines of business to include health care services appropriate to various stages of their patients’ lives. One of Peter’s clients, which operates a skilled nursing facility and an assisted living facility, has sought Peter’s help in acquiring a Medicare-certified home health agency business, so that the client can expand its elder care services to include in-home care. “Capturing these patients at an earlier stage in the aging process both helps ease their transitions to more intensive forms of care, but also positions the client to take a broader role in being responsible for the overall health of an expanded patient population, which is important for the client’s participation in value-based and population-health centered payment systems.”
Publications
-
Corporate Insights: Disclosing PHI Upon the Sale of a Medical Practice
-
Peter Martin Writes “Legal Consult: Physician, Curb Thyself!” for Worcester Medicine
-
Peter Martin Writes “Caretakers of the Elderly: Risk, Neglect and Injury” for Worcester Medicine
-
Peter Martin Writes “States of Emergency” for Worcester Medicine
News
-
Boston Globe Quotes Peter Martin in “Clerk magistrates who oversee court filings have paperwork problems of their own”
-
Cape Cod Times quotes Peter Martin in “Will Trump’s Plans for Health Care Undo State Reforms?”
-
Peter Martin presents “Tax Exempt Organizations from Start to Finish” at National Business Institute
-
Worcester Medicine publishes “The Fairness of Summary Suspensions”