Caroline Brown

• (202) 499-4259
• cbrown@brownandpeisch.com

Caroline is a Partner with the firm. Caroline has been practicing in the area of government-sponsored health care and other public benefit programs for more than 25 years. Her practice focuses on advice and litigation involving Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and the Affordable Care Act, as well as non-health care entitlement programs such as Foster Care and Adoption Assistance, TANF, Child Support Enforcement, SNAP, and WIC.

Caroline’s advisory practice centers on the public assistance statutes and implementing regulations which courts have described (correctly) as “among the most completely impenetrable texts within human experience.” She regularly counsels clients on application of those provisions to a range of complex issues including Medicaid upper payment limits (UPL), Medicare and Medicaid disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments, certified public expenditures (CPE), graduate medical education (GME), Medicaid managed care, payment for home and community-based services, dual eligibles, provider taxes, and Section 1115 demonstration projects.

Caroline has represented clients in over 50 cases before the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Departmental Appeals Board, and over 20 appeals of state plan amendment disapprovals. Her federal court practice includes representing clients suing HHS agencies to invalidate various types of agency action, as well as defending state and local agencies in challenges to operation of their public assistance programs. 

Caroline’s representative matters include: 

• Representing Moda Health Plan in an action recovering over $200 million in unpaid ACA risk corridor payments in Moda Health Plan, Inc. v. United States, 130 Fed. Cl. 436 (2017), rev’d 892 F.3d 1311, rev’d Maine Cmty. Health Options v. United States, 140 S. Ct. 1308 (2020).
• Advising state Medicaid agencies on amendments to, extensions of, and compliance with Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration terms and conditions.
• Representing the Georgia Department of Community Health in an appeal of an over $90 million Medicaid disallowance in Georgia Department of Community Health v. HHS, 79 F. Supp. 3d 269 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
• Advising state Medicaid agencies on issues relating to DSH payments and hospital UPLs.  
• Representing the New Jersey Department of Human Services in rate dispute with Federally Qualified Health Centers in N.J. Primary Care Ass’n v. State of N.J. Dep’t of Human Servs., 722 F.3d 527 (3d Cir. 2013).
• Representing the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals in overturning a denial of a Medicaid state plan amendment in Louisiana Dep’t of Health and Hosps. v. CMS, 346 F.3d 571 (5th Cir. 2003).

Caroline is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Prior to founding Brown & Peisch PLLC, she was a partner at Covington & Burling LLP, where she chaired the Federal-State Programs practice and co-chaired the Health Care group.  Before private practice, she was a law clerk to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then serving on the D.C. Circuit, and Sandra Day O’Connor, on the Supreme Court.  

Apart from her law practice, Caroline is a board member of Ethiopian Education Initiatives, and the Foundation Schools.