Overview
Charles (Charlie) R. Buck advises healthcare enterprises on complex transactions and regulatory compliance. He represents a wide range of clients, including proprietary and tax-exempt hospital systems, academic medical centers and faculty practice groups, accountable care organizations, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and other health insurers. Charlie is partner-in-charge of the Firm’s Boston Health Industry Advisory Practice Group.
Charlie provides legal counsel and solutions in connection with mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic affiliations, conversions to tax-exempt status, and other transactional matters. He advises clients forming and operating accountable care organizations (ACOs), including commercial ACOs and those in the Medicare Pioneer Program and Medicare Shared Savings Program ACOs.
Charlie focuses his regulatory practice on federal fraud and abuse laws (including the Stark Law), obtaining and maintaining tax-exemption, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and health information privacy, state insurance licensure and determination of need law, and general corporate matters.
After earning his law degree, Charlie clerked for the Honorable Charles R. Breyer of the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to law school, Charlie served on the professional staff of the United States Senate Finance Committee for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, where he concentrated on health reform and Medicare Part A. He also worked as a policy analyst at the Jackson Hole Group, where he focused on rural healthcare and purchasing cooperatives.
Results
- Advised Lahey Health System on its consolidation with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, New England Baptist Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, and Anna Jaques Hospital to form Beth Israel Lahey Health, the most significant healthcare transaction in the Massachusetts market since the formation of Partners HealthCare in 1994
- Advised Reliant Medical Group in the sale of its assets and operations to OptumCare, a division of UnitedHealth Group
- Advised RWJBarnabas Health in the negotiation of a long-term academic and clinical affiliation with Rutgers University
- Advised Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on the establishment of several community-based facilities
- Advised sophisticated medical oncology group on its acquisition by American Oncology Network (AON)
- Assisted multiple ACOs with formation and Medicare approval
- Successful consolidation of a physician group with more than 700 members
- Multiple successful hospital mergers and acquisitions
Recognitions
- Chambers USA, Band 1 in Healthcare, 2006-2023
- The Best Lawyers in America, Healthcare Law, Boston, 2008-2024
- Thomson Reuters, Stand-out Lawyer – independently rated lawyers, 2024
- The Legal 500 United States, 2015-2019
- The Best Lawyers in America, “Lawyer of the Year” for Health Care Law, Boston, 2015, 2018 and 2022
Credentials
Education
Stanford Law School – Stanford University, JD, Order of the Coif, 2001
Middlebury College, BA, magna cum laude, 1992
Admissions
Massachusetts
