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Christina Moore

The baseline of Christina’s advocacy as a healthcare litigator began before she attended law school. As a chief accountant and finance director at a healthcare startup, numerous physician practices, a home health organization and a major for-profit hospital corporation, Christina helped align the details of patient care with proactive compliance, organizational growth and cost efficiency. Christina brings this experience to clients when handling complex healthcare litigation on their behalf.

Christina also served for nearly a decade as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Missouri, representing numerous federal agencies in a wide variety of civil matters including medical malpractice, qui tam actions, employment matters and health care fraud. Most recently, Christina guided the medical school, physician practice of 500+, health sciences college and nursing school of a large private university in her role as in-house counsel.

While Monty Hall (or for the current generation, Wayne Brady) was nowhere in sight, it was difficult not to think about the show “Let’s Make a Deal” while sitting in the audience at the American Bar Association’s 39th National Institute on White Collar Crime. During the Institute, one of the featured speakers, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, announced a new DOJ-led whistleblower rewards program.

On June 27, 2022, the United States Supreme Court, by a vote of 9-0, overturned the lower circuit courts’ rulings affirming the convictions of two physicians of the unlawful distribution of controlled substances. In Ruan v. United States (Case No. 20-1410), consolidated with Kahn v. United States (Case No. 21-5261), the Supreme Court was asked to determine whether a physician may be convicted of unlawful distribution of controlled substances under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) without regard to whether, in good faith, the physician “reasonably believed” or “subjectively intended” that his or her prescriptions fall within that course of professional practice. The Controlled Substances Act makes it unlawful for “any person knowingly or intentionally … to manufacture, distribute, or dispense” a controlled substance, “except as authorized.” A prescription is authorized when it is “issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice.” 21 C.F.R. § 1306.04(a). The “vague and highly general regulatory language” left open the question of what conduct would fall under the statute’s exception and thus be considered legal.