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O’Connor takes the mystery out of health care law

By: Alex Zank//September 22, 2016//

O’Connor takes the mystery out of health care law

By: Alex Zank//September 22, 2016//

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Meghan O’Connor - von Briesen & Roper (Staff Photo by Kevin Harnack)
Meghan O’Connor –
von Briesen & Roper (Staff Photo by Kevin Harnack)

Meghan O’Connor is an expert in one of those fields that affects nearly everyone yet is a mystery to many: health care law.

So it might come as no surprise that she gets a lot of questions from family and friends.

O’Connor, an associate at Milwaukee-based von Briesen & Roper and chairwoman of the firm’s Health Information Privacy and Security team, said she was always generally drawn to health care.

It’s an interest that stretches to her undergraduate days, when she was an undeclared major in medical anthropology.

“So basically Indiana Jones, but with health care issues,” she said.

O’Connor joined von Briesen in 2010, following a brief stint at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health of Human Services. She said that earlier experience is something that she still draws on.

“I saw the types of processes the federal government uses,” she said, particularly citing federal regulation of Medicare and Medicaid.

Her expertise puts O’Connor in a position to explain to clients why the government might ask for a certain document more than once, or why a certain procedure is taking so much time.

“So it gave that little bit of behind-the-curtain (view) that … continues to helpful with clients now,” she said.

O’Connor also devotes much of her time to community organizations. She sits, for instance, on the Medical College of Wisconsin Women in Science Advisory Committee.

She said the science-advisory committee, on its face at least, might seem to have little to do with her practice. But there are connections.

O’Connor said the committee has helped her stay abreast of the various ways that cutting-edge scientific research affects health care law. It has also helped her become familiar with a host of medical terms.

“It translates to your personal life too,” she said, “because everyone has to deal with their own health issues.”

In nominating O’Connor to be an Up and Coming Lawyer, Randall Crocker, president and chief executive officer of von Briesen, said her influence on the field is evidenced by the many occasions on which she has been engaged to speak about health care law.

Most recently, she served as a presenter in February to the Paralegal Association of Wisconsin. She spoke about what legal professionals should be aware of when they are dealing with health care information.

O’Connor is a 2010 graduate of Marquette University Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Marquette Elder’s Advisor Journal, and a member of the Association for Women Lawyers.

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