Jessica A. Ellel

Chair of Houston Harbaugh’s Health Law Practice, Jessica works almost exclusively with health care entities and health practitioners. She has extensive experience with:

• Drafting and negotiating physician employment agreements from both the physician and employer perspectives
• Negotiating contracts between physicians and hospitals
• Preparing purchase agreements to govern the sale of medical practices
• Advising on corporate governance issues, from practice formation to dissolution
• Developing comprehensive compliance plans for physician practices, hospitals, third-party billing administrators, and other health care and related entities
• Organizing strategies for compliance with fraud and abuse laws
• Addressing HIPAA compliance

Jessica is especially well-versed in HIPAA compliance and authors numerous client updates and bulletins on the subject. She conducts on-site and remote HIPAA training and also maintains Houston Harbaugh’s HIPAA compliance manual, ” Federal HIPAA Privacy Standards Simplified: A Comprehensive Tool-Kit”.

As an outgrowth of her work with non-profit health care entities, Jessica also helps non-profit organizations and foundations with their corporate affairs, such as obtaining and maintaining 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and handling regulatory compliance matters. Her experience in the non-profit industry includes serving as counsel during the merger of several multi-state non-profits into one regional entity which required communication and information sharing with the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office to obtain approval for the transaction.

Jessica frequently publishes articles and presents on issues relating to physician employment agreements, the Affordable Care Act, and other compliance issues. She has published articles in the Allegheny County Medical Society Bulletin and in the Physicians News Digest.

Jessica is also an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law teaching the course Legal Aspects of Health Care Compliance.