Fort Lauderdale partner Frank Terzo will moderate the panel on "The Role of a Patient Care Ombudsman in a Business Bankruptcy" at the American Bankruptcy Institute's 2019 Winter Leadership Conference on Dec. 6. This session will focus on the views of patient care ombudsmen (PCOs) on:

• quality-of-care issues they routinely confront in chapter 11 cases;
• how debtor, secured lender, and committee professionals react to either support or suppress the findings made by health care experts;
• an in-depth analysis of what constitutes the proper protocol to evaluate quality of care;
• differences in the approaches made to the PCO role by a doctor, nurse and/or health care administrator;
• whether PCOs universally should be doctors, nurses or health care administrators and not lawyers posing as health care professionals;
• obligations of PCOs to tell quality-of-care stories without concern for the potential economic impact on an exit strategy in the bankruptcy (i.e., sale, potential loss of license, etc.);
• impact of transfer trauma on a change of control arising from a potential sale of the health care business;
• how the PCO is differentiated from a state long-term care ombudsman, Medicare and Medicaid surveyors;
• and the PCO’s role as patient advocate in bankruptcy cases.