On March 19, 2020, our lives in California changed as Governor Newsom ordered a statewide shelter-in-place order in light of then-projections that over half of Californians could become infected with COVID-19 over a period of just eight weeks. We, like our clients, were uncertain of what the future would hold, and quickly pivoted to address a flurry of day-to-day issues and new regulatory changes that arose to prepare for a potential surge. Luckily, California’s initial surge paled compared to New York, sparing many of our lines of defense. At the same time, however, many of our clients whose businesses were not deemed “essential” for COVID-19 defense faced substantial losses as patient volumes plummeted.
Today, we at Athene Law find ourselves reeling and recovering from over four months of constant change. We have taken a step back to share our thoughts about what has happened since March and what our provider clients should keep in mind as the rate of change slows down. Over the next few weeks, we plan to share our insight via the Athene Law blog, about areas of change in the last few months and our perspective on how providers may plan for the future. While nobody has a crystal ball into the future, we draw on our years of experience working in healthcare (during both good times and bad) for this series of posts.