DeBarge, Michelle Wilcox

Michelle Wilcox DeBarge is a partner in Wiggin and Dana's Health Care Department. She chairs the Clinical Research Regulation and Compliance Practice Group, the HIPAA Practice Group, and the Health Information Technology Practice Group. She is also a member of the firm's Biotechnology and Life Sciences Practice Group.

Michelle advises health care providers, health care and research organizations, and research sponsors on a broad range of regulatory matters, including health care licensure and operations; research regulation and compliance; privacy and security of health information, including HIPAA; fraud and abuse; Medicare and Medicaid compliance; and patient care matters. Michelle lectures frequently on both the state and national level. She is a co-author of the "HIPAA Handbook: Implementing the Federal Privacy Rule in a Long-Term Care Setting," published by The American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging and is the author of "HIV-infected Physicians: The Duty to Disclose Under the Informed Consent Doctrine," published in the University of Connecticut Law Review.

Before practicing law, Michelle was a program director with the American Cancer Society, where she worked with physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to implement rehabilitation and educational programs for cancer patients, health professionals, and the general public. Before joining Wiggin and Dana, she also supervised the communications program of a community-based health and social service agency.

Michelle serves on the University of Connecticut Health Center Institutional Review Board and is a member of the Applied Research Ethics National Association, the American Health Lawyers Association, and the Health Care Compliance Association. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Health Lawyers Association. Michelle is listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the category of best health care lawyers (for more about the standards for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America, please click here).

Michelle received a B.A. from Williams College, studied abroad at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, and received her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Connecticut School of Law where she was Editor-in-Chief of the University of Connecticut Law Review.