D. Brian Hufford leads an innovative and nationally recognized practice representing patients and health care providers in high stakes disputes with health insurance companies.
His efforts led to two of the largest recoveries ever obtained in ERISA-based health insurance class actions, and to a collection of other precedent setting decisions that have transformed the rights of patients and providers.
Brian’s work on reimbursement rate-related litigation against United Healthcare and HealthNet, for example, led to settlements worth over $600 million. Brian has served as co-lead counsel in other national health care litigation against United, Aetna, WellPoint, CIGNA, and various Blue Cross and Blue Shield entities. Brian has successfully argued health care appeals before the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Second, Third and Fifth Circuits, and was lead counsel in two trials against Blue Cross and Blue Shield entities on behalf of providers and provider associations.
Most recently, Brian won a landmark victory in a case challenging United Behavioral Health’s mental health and substance use level of care coverage guidelines. Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, the sponsor of the federal mental health parity act, hailed the case as the “Brown v. Board of Education for the mental health movement,” and CNN identified it as “one of the most important and most thorough rulings ever issued against an insurance company, at the federal level, on mental health issues.”
Brian is a Law360 "MVP" for Health Care (2015, 2016, and 2017) and Benefits (2019). He was chosen as a Plaintiff’s Attorney “Trailblazer” in 2017 by The National Law Journal, and has been recognized in industry rankings such as Benchmark Litigation and Super Lawyers. Under his leadership, the firm’s health care practice was named 2017 Health Group of the Year and Benefits Group of the Year in 2018 and 2019 by Law360. Brian also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of BNA’s Health Law Reporter, is a member of the Kennedy Forum Legal Workgroup and has published health law-related opinion pieces in The Washington Post and CNBC.com.
In addition to representing individual patients and health care providers, Brian has represented or pursued claims for a number of significant institutions, including medical associations such as the American Medical Association (AMA), the New York State Psychiatric Association, Medical Society of the State of New York, the Medical Society of New Jersey, the Society of New York Office Based Surgery Facilities, American Dental Association, American Chiropractic Association, Congress of Chiropractic State Associations, New York Chiropractic Council, and Pennsylvania Chiropractic Association.
Brian has written and lectured extensively in the area of health care litigation. He has spoken at conferences and seminars sponsored by organizations such as the National Association of Attorneys General, American Medical Association, American Corporate Counsel Association, American Chiropractic Association, and Congress of Chiropractic State Associations, and the American Conference Institute for the National Forum on ERISA Litigation, among others.
Prior to entering private practice, Brian spent two years as an honors attorney in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Honors Law Program. Brian attended Yale Law School, where he was notes and topics editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review and was awarded the Thomas I. Emerson Prize for the Outstanding Legislative Services Project. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Urban Affairs from Wichita State University, home of the “Wheatshocker.”
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