Heather O. Berchem

As Chair of the firm's Long Term Care Practice Group and a member of the Health Care and Information Security and Privacy Practice Groups, Ms. Berchem advises nursing homes, assisted living communities, CCRCs, hospitals, and home health care and hospice agencies. Her practice encompasses a wide range of regulatory, compliance, risk management and reimbursement issues including licensure; certificates of need; Medicare and Medicaid audits; changes of ownership; HIPAA and security breaches; and responding to audits and investigations by federal and state agencies.

Ms. Berchem serves as counsel to the Connecticut Association of Health Care Facilities and sits on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Assisted Living Association. She serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the American Health Lawyers Association's ("AHLA") LTC-SIR Advisor, is a contributing author of Fifty State Survey of Certificate of Need and Licensure: Nursing Homes, Assisted Living, Home Health, and Hospice, published by the American Health Lawyers Association and has lectured on a wide variety of long-term care and health care topics both at the state and national level.

Ms. Berchem received her B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley and her law degree from Boston University School of Law. Prior to joining Murtha Cullina in 1997, she was an associate at Schwartz, Shaw & Griffith in Boston, MA, where she handled healthcare criminal defense matters. Ms. Berchem is admitted to practice in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

• Health Care
• Information Security and Privacy
• Long-Term Care

• Connecticut Bar Association
• Massachusetts Bar Association
• Connecticut Health Lawyers Association 

• Provider Beware: If You Find A Medicare Overpayment, Give It Back - Fast!
• OCR Rolls Out HIPAA Audit Program

• CAHCF "Back to Basics" Seminar Series
• CT-HFMA Legal Update - February 2011
• American Health Lawyers Association, February 2010
• American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging, November 2009