Overview
Experience
Credentials
Perspectives

Carole Christian, Partner-in-Charge of Wyatt’s Louisville office, is Co-Chair of the Firm’s Health Care Service Team.  She concentrates her practice in the areas of health care and related litigation. 

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REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

Ms. Christian represents health care clients in certificate of need hearings, court appeals, Medicaid appeals, Medicare reimbursement and similar negotiations and disputes with state and federal regulatory authorities.  She has 35 years of experience counseling hospitals, physicians, nursing homes and other providers of goods and services concerning contracts, fraud and abuse, licensing, medical staff matters, emergency treatment, medical records, withdrawal of treatment decisions and other patient care matters and acquisitions.

Ms. Christian has counseled clients extensively on new and emerging issues in health care regulation, including: compliance programs and codes of conduct; electronic medical records; and the Affordable Care Act.

  • Comprehensive Home Health Services, Inc. v. Professional Home Health Care Agency, Inc., 434 SW3d 433 (2013) (establishing standards for conduct of certificate of need hearing following judicial remand) 
  • Commonwealth v. Appalachian Regional Health Care, Inc., 606 SW3d 623 (Ky. App. 2019) (agreeing with lower court that the state Department of Medicaid Services’ method of paying for impatient hospital care violated statutory mandate)
  • Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Pediatric Specialists, PLLC, 579 SW3d 865 (Ky. App. 2018) (ruling in favor of physician group and rejecting Department of Medicaid’s effort to recoup money paid for services based on invalid audit and extrapolation)
  • Northern Kentucky Mental Health Mental Retardation Regional Board, Inc. v. Commonwealth, Cabinet for Health & Family Services, 538 SW3d 298 (Ky. App. 2017) (ruling in favor of psychiatric hospital and affirming lower court decision that the state’s Medicaid payment methodology was illegal)
  • Appalachian Regional Health Care, Inc. v. Coventry Health and Life Insurance Co., No. 5:12-114-KKC (E.D. Ky. Sept. 30, 2016) (ruling in favor of health system in dispute with Medicaid managed care company over out-of-network rates)
  • Muhlenberg Community Hospital v. Muhlenberg Medical Properties VI, LLC, No. 2007-CA-002219 (Ky. App. 2009) (holding that physician group failed to satisfy criteria for exception to certificate of need law)

EDUCATION

  • J.D., magna cum laude, Valedictorian, University of Louisville, 1988
  • B.A., with high distinction, University of Kentucky, 1982

ADMISSIONS

Kentucky

HONORS

  • Woodward/White’s Best Lawyers in America® in the areas of Health Care Law and Administrative/Regulatory Law, 1995-present
  • Best Lawyers® 2013, 2024 Louisville Health Care Law “Lawyer of the Year”
  • Best Lawyers® 2012, 2014, 2023 Louisville Administrative/Regulatory Law “Lawyer of the Year”
  • Highest Professional Rating by Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory
  • Recognized by her peers as one of the Kentucky Super Lawyers® 2013-2022
  • Recognized as one of the “Top Lawyers” in the area of Health Care Law by Louisville Magazine, March 2014
  • Included in the Louisville Business First’s “Forty Under 40” list of young leaders in the community
  • Graduate of Leadership Louisville
  • University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES AND MEMBERSHIPS

  • Louisville, Kentucky and American Bar Associations
  • American Health Lawyers Association, member
  • Past President of the Kentucky Academy of Hospital Attorneys
  • Former Vice President of the Jefferson County Women Lawyers Association
  • Legal Advisory Board, Kentucky Association of Healthcare Facilities

RECENT PUBLICATIONS/PRESENTATIONS

  • “Value-based Arrangements and More: Recent Changes to the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute,” presentation to Kentucky Hospital Association Convention, May 2021
  • Chapter titled “Advance Directives” in Elder Law in Kentucky (2nd Ed. 2021)
  • “Legal Issues with Mid-Level Providers,” presentation at Kentucky Health Law Institute, September 2020

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT

  • Director of the American Heart Association, Kentuckiana Metro Chapter
  • Founding Director of the Epilepsy Foundation of Kentuckiana
  • Site-Based Decision-Making Council, Jefferson County Public Schools
  • Founding Member of the Board of Directors, The Asclepius Initiative