Paulette represents healthcare providers and other healthcare organizations in payor disputes, government investigations, regulatory audits, and enforcement matters. Her experience includes representing laboratories, physician groups, therapy providers, skilled nursing facilities, and management services organizations (MSOs) in disputes with commercial and government payors.  

Tried in 2025 – an administrative hearing representing a DME supplier in a dispute with a state Medicaid agency relating to a coding dispute with nationwide impact in DME industry. (pending).

Since 2016, Paulette has practiced with the law firms Bleakley Platt & Schmidt and Lichtman Law, and earlier in her career with Day Pitney, representing healthcare providers in government investigations, regulatory audits, litigation, and regulatory compliance. She has represented clients in matters involving the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Offices, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, State Attorneys General, Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as in audits conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), CMS-contracted auditors, and payor Special Investigations Units (SIUs).

Her payor-dispute experience includes assisting providers in responding to payment audits, recoupment demands, claims disputes, investigations, and other payor challenges, including matters involving significant financial exposure. She also assists clients with self-disclosures to the state and federal government, particularly OIG under the exclusion guidance.  She also works with clients to assess the underlying legal and regulatory issues, develop a response strategy, negotiate with payors and auditors, and, when necessary, pursue administrative or judicial remedies.

Paulette also advises clients on the federal and state laws that frequently arise in healthcare disputes and investigations, including the Anti-Kickback Statute, False Claims Act, Stark Law, Corporate Practice of Medicine, antitrust laws, HIPAA, and related healthcare regulatory requirements. Her experience allows her to approach disputes not only as litigation matters, but also from an operational and regulatory perspective, helping clients identify and address the underlying issues that may have led to the dispute or investigation.

Earlier in her career, Paulette held state and federal prosecutorial positions. She served with the U.S. Department of Justice, where she received the Barrister Award from the Attorney General, and later served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York under U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. She was one of the founding members of the Office’s Health Care Fraud Task Force, providing her with first-hand experience investigating and prosecuting healthcare fraud matters. 

During her time as a prosecutor, she tried significant matters in federal court, including a criminal tax matter where the defendant had ties to waste management.  Earlier in her career, she was part of an organized crime strike force and in 1994, she received an award for her involvement in a $36 million tax evasion case.  In 1993, Paulette successfully tried organized crime figures, and the trial was later featured in several books about Russian organized crime.  The task force was credited with ending gasoline excise tax evasion, or “gasoline bootlegging”.

This combination of prosecutorial, in-house, and private-practice experience gives Paulette a practical understanding of healthcare disputes from both sides of an investigation—from the perspective of government and enforcement authorities as well as healthcare providers and organizations responding to government or payor scrutiny.