Nadia
de la Houssaye

Position: Partner
Office: New Orleans

Nadia de la Houssaye is co-leader of the firm’s Healthcare Industry Team and chairs the firm’s digital health and telemedicine team. She works extensively with hospitals, health systems, providers, and startup companies to structure and integrate telemedicine, telehealth, and digital health platforms.

Drawing on her more than 30 years in private practice and firsthand experience as co-founder of and general counsel to one of Louisiana’s first teleradiology networks, Nadia helps clients navigate the rapidly developing regulatory landscape affecting today’s healthcare delivery. She provides guidance on the structuring of scalable national and international telehealth companies, including with respect to strategic growth, entry markets, state and international licensure issues, acceptable telehealth modalities and practice standards, privacy and data usage, corporate practice of medicine prohibitions, US Food and Drug Administration applications, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) waivers, and regulatory changes in response to COVID-19 and its aftermath.

Nadia’s passion for the expansion and growth of telemedicine began in 1997, when she co-created and helped launch one of Louisiana’s first teleradiology networks. In 2004, the company merged with another teleradiology network located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, creating NightHawk, the nation’s largest of its kind at the time, with headquarters and offices in the United States, Australia, Germany, and Switzerland. NightHawk Radiology went public in 2006, and Nadia has since continued to provide strategic counsel to venture-backed entrepreneurs, healthcare providers, and hospital systems on digital health and telehealth service lines, including international telehealth arrangements involving multistate and international licensure and scope-of-practice issues, and on data security, storage, and usage.

Ranked Band 1 in Healthcare in Chambers USA, Nadia is recognized by clients for her “cutting-edge information and advice regarding telemedicine affairs, both domestic and international." As a pioneer and thought leader, Nadia is regularly sought out by industry publications and organizations for her insights on digital health, telehealth, and the vastly expanding market, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. She is an active member of the American Telemedicine Association and numerous digital health associations where she routinely moderates and speaks at annual meeting and conference sessions. Nadia also serves as deputy chairperson of the Federal Bar Association’s Health Law Section for the 2024–2025 term.

Recent examples of Nadia’s thought leadership include the following:

de la Houssaye Presents Lorman Webinar on Telehealth Across State Lines, June 2024: Nadia’s presentation “Legal Process to Practice Over State Lines for Telebehavior and Telemental Health” highlighted the crucial need to extend the Drug Enforcement Administration's e-prescribing regulations beyond 2024 to ensure continued access to virtual healthcare, particularly for underserved and at-risk populations.
de la Houssaye Presents Strafford Webinar on Telemedicine Management Services Agreements, May 2024: Nadia’s panel presentation “Telemedicine Management Services Agreements: Corporate Practice of Medicine, Fee-Splitting, Regulatory Compliance” guided healthcare counsel on structuring telemedicine management services agreements and discussed the legal risks and considerations for management groups and healthcare providers.
de la Houssaye Serves as Panelist for Federal Bar Association Career Development Webinar, April 2024: Nadia presented “The Nuts and Bolts of Health Law,” in which her session covered provider licensing, credentialing, oversight, and peer review.
de la Houssaye Authors DecisionHealth Article on Healthcare Board Certification Revocation, September 2023: In the article titled “What you say about the boards can be held against you,” Nadia offers her perspective on how physicians should defend themselves against license revocation for violating standards of professionalism due to sharing objectively innocuous information about board certifications.
de la Houssaye Authors Article on Post-Pandemic Telemedicine Outlook, July 2023: In the article titled “Patient Access and Quality Care: Post-Pandemic Regulation of Telemedicine in the United States,” Nadia expresses that challenges related to corporate practice of medicine laws, fraud, and data privacy must be addressed to ensure the widespread and secure adoption of telemedicine solutions to increase patient access and quality care.
de la Houssaye Quoted in Plan B Health Article on Unlicensed PA, May 2023: In the article titled “NPPs Get Hired Without Licenses, Despite Exclusion; Keep Your Guard Up,” Nadia explains that in addition to background and criminal record checks, practices should be checking every clinical hire against the National Practitioner Data Bank to ensure any adverse actions related to licensure are uncovered.
de la Houssaye Presents at HCCA Healthcare Enforcement Compliance Conference, November 2022: Nadia’s session, “Criminal and Civil Enforcement and Telehealth,” covered fraud schemes in healthcare regarding telemedicine, COVID-19, and labs and the relevant enforcement efforts by the US Department of Justice and Office of Inspector General for the US Department of Health and Human Services.
de la Houssaye Moderates Panel for ABA’s Physician Legal Issues Conference, September 2022: Nadia held a question-and-answer session with Dr. Gerald Harmon, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association, on the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling and the resulting legal issues for physicians and healthcare providers.
de la Houssaye Authors Article Included in Health Law Horizons Newsletter, October 2021: In the article titled “COVID-19 and Telemedicine in the Present Tense: Navigating Toward a Post-Pandemic Regulatory Landscape,” Nadia discusses how COVID-19 expanded the telemedicine industry and what the future holds for the industry post-pandemic.
de la Houssaye Discusses Telemedicine on Discover Lafayette Podcast, September 2021: Nadia explains her role in launching the teleradiology company NightHawk, the growth of telemedicine in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and the regulatory challenges faced by telemedicine and telehealth companies, as well as individual physicians, as the industry evolves.
de la Houssaye Authors Baton Rouge Business Report Article on Telehealth Integration, October 2020: In the article titled “Telehealth: From Crisis Response to Cornerstone of Healthcare,” Nadia discusses the evolution of telehealth since the COVID-19 pandemic.
de la Houssaye Co-Authors Article in Sexual Medicine Reviews on Telemedicine for Sexual Medicine Patients, October 2020: In the article titled “Use of Telemedicine for Sexual Medicine Patients,” Nadia outlines the future of telemedicine practices and technology for sexual medicine patients and examines legal issues associated with the progress of telemedicine in sexual medicine.