Mia L. McKown

Mia McKown is a seasoned health attorney in Holland & Knight's Tallahassee office and focuses her practice in the area of regulatory and administrative law as well as commercial litigation, with a focus on assisting clients that do business with, or are regulated by, state and local governmental entities.

Ms. McKown served as a general counsel for a state agency in Florida and has developed extensive knowledge and experience that enables her to successfully navigate her clients through the maze of state regulation in Florida. She advises clients on state and federal matters, including the Florida Administrative Procedure Act (APA), licensure, certificate of need, fraud and abuse, internal investigations, long-term care, compliance programs, Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) and procurement.

Ms. McKown's clients include hospitals, hospices, continuing care retirement communities, assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, healthcare clinics, substance abuse centers, medical device companies and physician groups. She also regularly assists Florida licensed medical professionals, including doctors, nurse practitioners, physicians' assistants, optometrists, nurses, respiratory therapists, massage therapists and other healthcare providers facing licensing, disciplinary or administrative sanctions or suspension and/or revocation of provider licenses. In most instances, Ms. McKown is able to successfully resolve the review process by providing an informative and properly drawn response to the fact-finding inquiry. However, if an administrative complaint is filed against a healthcare provider, Ms. McKown routinely defends these matters before the administrative law judges at the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH) and numerous Florida agencies, including, but not limited to, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), the Department of Financial Services (DFS) and the Office of the Attorney General. As these cases differ procedurally and substantively from cases in the civil arena, she has the experience and skills to defend these sensitive and often complex matters.

Ms. McKown's successful representations and experience include:

• Rule challenges: successfully defended optometrists in demonstrating that the state regulatory board's look-back period for test scores was an invalid exercise of the board's authority
• Administrative hearings: successfully defended hospitals' certificate of need awards and successfully defended administrative actions taken against nursing homes, assisted living facilities and hospitals; also successfully represented a substance abuse provider with the Florida Department of Children and Families' (DCF) determination of need process and the issuance of methadone licenses
• Procurement: successfully defended a contract award for processing and disbursing child support payments through bid protest administrative litigation, open meetings law litigation in state court and two appeals
• Licensure: advised healthcare entities on Florida regulatory and licensure matters involving Florida's DOH, DBPR and the AHCA
• Public records: successfully represented companies in protecting its trade secret information from disclosure under Florida's public records laws
• Internal investigations: conducted internal investigations relating to regulatory compliance in the event of a death or serious injury of a resident and/or patient
• Long-term care: prepared terminations of nursing home and assisted living agreements conducted compliance training; and provided regulatory advice to senior living communities and continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs)
• Surveys and inspections: assisted hospitals and nursing homes with drafting plans of correction in response to state and federal statements of deficiencies, including findings of immediate jeopardy and EMTALA allegations
• Inspector General investigations: successfully represented clients during inspector general investigations regarding state government contract compliance issues

Ms. McKown also assists clients in addressing the client's obligations related to the preservation, collection, review and production of electronically stored information (ESI), including the management and oversight of the forensic tools to collect and process data, predictive coding and other analytic tools for search, and hosted environments for online review in a manner that is accurate, efficient and consistent with all of the client's legal obligations.

Additionally, Ms. McKown serves on the Florida Chamber Foundation, which is considered the leading edge of the Florida Chamber enterprise. The foundation, part of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, is a problem-solver and research organization, working in partnership with state business leaders to promote a vibrant Florida economy. She currently serves as the chairman of the foundation's Finance and Investment Committee.