News Article

ATLANTA—Womble Carlyle is pleased to announce that Dr. Charles H. Whigham has joined the firm’s Healthcare Industry Team as a Consulting Physician.

 

Whigham will assist the team’s attorneys and staff in helping healthcare clients respond appropriately to audits of their services by government agencies and/or government contractors, such as Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) or Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs). In this capacity, he will work closely with Womble Carlyle attorney Tracy Field, the former Executive Vice President of Compliance and Government Appeals for Piedmont Healthcare, Inc., a healthcare system including five hospitals, more than 50 primary care and specialty physician practices and a 900-member clinically integrated physician network. Field also has nearly two decades of private practice experience focusing on healthcare and reimbursement issues. She leads Womble Carlyle’s Healthcare Industry Team in Atlanta.

 

Field and Whigham are part of a comprehensive Womble Carlyle team focusing on issues related to government audits of healthcare services provided by Womble Carlyle clients (i.e., hospitals, physicians, suppliers, etc.). The team, composed of attorneys, medical professionals and certified professional coders, assesses the medical and legal issues involved in each audit and helps clients formulate the most appropriate and effective response. The Womble Carlyle team assists providers at each stage of the audit process, from initial notification of audit through all levels of appeal, if appeal is necessary.   

 

The team’s services also include assisting providers with their internal compliance efforts, including assisting providers with medical staff education, designed to correct documentation and coding deficiencies on a prospective basis. The team will focus on providing high-quality, cost-effective services.

 

Whigham, who will work in the firm’s Atlanta office, has extensive experience dealing with healthcare audit-related issues, having previously served as the Medicare Part B Carrier Medical Director for Georgia (while working with Aetna and with Cahaba GBA), and as a Medical Director with a Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (Georgia Medical Care Foundation). He also has previously worked as a Medical Director with a Medicaid Integrity Contractor. Most recently, Whigham served as Medical Director/Chief Medical Officer with Healthcare Management Solutions, LLC. Additionally, he worked as a private consultant assisting healthcare providers and their attorneys with issues related to government audits of their services. 

 

Whigham earned his B.S. Degree from the University of Georgia and his M.D. Degree from the Medical College of Georgia. He completed his internship at the University of Alabama and his residency in internal medicine at University Hospital in Jacksonville, Fla. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and has years of clinical practice experience.