Denise Rios Rodriguez is a retired partner and health care lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP, where she focused her practice on payment issues arising under government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, including Medicaid demonstration projects and Medicare enrollment and billing appeals. She has represented public and private health care providers in administrative hearings, as well as in state and federal courts. Her considerable knowledge in health-related laws and regulations has been applied in advising clients on the complexities of federal, state and local health care funding, as well as strategic planning for health care systems. Denise was a member of the Health Care Industry Team.

Denise was previously legal counsel for regulatory affairs for a large Miami-based HMO, where she was responsible for legal issues arising from the company’s risk-based Medicare contract. For the first six years of her legal career, Denise was an attorney for the United States Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., where she served as counsel to the Health Care Financing Administration (now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and other agencies within the Department. As a government attorney she was responsible for the analysis of waiver applications from various states seeking federal approval for the implementation of innovative programs for Medicaid beneficiaries. She also provided legal advice on the development of Medicare and Medicaid regulations and policies and represented the government in federal court.