Kristen McDermott Woodrum

About

Kristen McDermott Woodrum, a McGuireWoods LLP partner, structures mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures for healthcare clients. She represents private equity investors and their portfolio companies, along with health systems and provider groups. For providers, she handles affiliations, physician alignment, and newer care and payment models. She leads diligence for those investors and shapes each deal's terms. After closing, she counsels portfolio companies adding services or entering new places. Before her J.D., she held clinical and management roles in behavioral health. She earned her J.D. at Tulane University Law School in 2005. She completed an M.B.A. at the Tulane University Freeman School of Business in 2005. She chairs the American Health Law Association Physicians and Hospitals Law Institute. She applies the Stark Law, the Anti-Kickback Statute, and corporate practice of medicine rules when she structures a healthcare acquisition or joint venture.

Who is a good fit for Kristen McDermott Woodrum

• Private equity investors acquiring a healthcare company or a physician practice.
• Health systems pursuing an affiliation or an alignment transaction.
• Owners selling a provider group or forming a joint venture.

Education and admissions

Education

• Tulane University Freeman School of Business, M.B.A., 2005
• Tulane University Law School, J.D., 2005
• Clemson University, B.A. in Psychology and Sociology, 1996

Bar admissions

Georgia, South Carolina

Recognition

• Selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, Health Care Law, 2026, 2027
• Selected for inclusion in Leading Lawyers, Healthcare, Georgia, Chambers USA, Band 4, 2021, 2022, 2023; Band 3, 2024, 2025, 2026
• Selected for inclusion in “Legal 500 United States,” Healthcare: service providers, 2025

Specialties

Representative matters

As described on the firm’s website.

• Represents national addiction treatment provider in strategic affiliation with academic medical center focused on treatment across the care continuum, research, and community outreach and education.
• Served as transactional and regulatory counsel to health system in acquisitions, joint ventures, and syndications involving 24 freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), including orthopedic (total joint), ophthalmology, urology, otolaryngology, gastroenterology, and other surgical specialties. Negotiated management arrangements with national and regional management companies.
• Served as regulatory counsel in sale of Catholic hospital in Ohio to academic medical center.
• Represented tax-exempt health system in acquisition of 22 independent diagnostic testing facilities and related transactions with for-profit management company and multi-state health system and in 7 other imaging transactions involving MRI, PET, x-ray, ultrasound, nuclear imaging, mammogram, and other imaging modalities.
• Represented non-profit health system in merger with another multi-campus hospital system, including oversight of due diligence and coordination of post-closing operational and regulatory plans.
• Served as regulatory counsel in sale of Catholic hospitals in South Carolina to public company.
• Advised health system in physician alignment transactions, including practice acquisitions, employment, medical director, response and call coverage agreements and other professional services arrangements.
• Served as regulatory counsel in multiple acquisitions of home health agencies and durable medical equipment providers by private equity owned platform company.
• Provided general and healthcare representation of large physician group practices and physician-owned ambulatory surgery centers, including preparation of governance documents, day-to-day operational and regulatory advice on healthcare issues, and assistance in structuring services agreements with hospital systems.
• Assists in coordination of healthcare due diligence in $2 billion acquisition of a charitable 501(c)(3) nonprofit health plan and its integrated delivery system. Assist in client’s evaluation and preliminary due diligence on other potential transactions across the country. ($2,000,000,000)

Deal profile

Typical deal size

Any deal size

Remote work

In-person / regional