We're waiting for confirmation of a news item in Politico that McDermott Plus is closing in August 2026.
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McDermott+: A 12-Year Experiment in Health Policy, Reimbursement and Washington Advocacy
On August 18, Politico reported that McDermott+, the health policy consulting and lobbying organization affiliated with McDermott Will & Schulte, will close at the end of August, with dozens of employees entering the Washington job market. Assuming the report is correct, the closure will bring to an end a distinctive 12-year experiment in combining health policy consulting, reimbursement strategy, data analytics and conventional Washington lobbying under one roof.
For many people in health policy, McDermott+ was sufficiently familiar that its unusual corporate structure could be easy to overlook. It looked and sounded like part of the McDermott law firm, occupied the same Washington address, shared personnel and frequently worked alongside McDermott lawyers. But it was not a law practice.
A deliberate spinout — but never an independent one
McDermott Will & Emery formally launched McDermott+Consulting, or McDermottPlus, in April 2014. The announcement described it as a “separate and distinct, wholly-owned subsidiary” of the law firm. Its original menu was unusually broad:
- congressional and executive-branch lobbying,
- budget-impact and cost-effectiveness modeling,
- political communications,
- public- and private-payer coverage, coding and pricing strategy, and
- healthcare data analysis.
- The firm explicitly promoted the ability to use project fees and retainers rather than limiting engagements to traditional law-firm hourly billing to the tenth of the hour. (KSL)
Thus, McDermott+ was less a conventional corporate spinout than a closely held consulting affiliate. That distinction remained important. McDermott’s current legal notices state explicitly that McDermottPlus LLC is wholly owned by McDermott Will & Schulte and does not provide legal advice or legal services. (McDermott) Earlier McDermott+ publications similarly cautioned that communications with the consulting company did not carry attorney-client privilege.
The arrangement nevertheless allowed extremely close integration. A client could be working with McDermott+ consultants on reimbursement economics, CMS policy or lobbying and, when a question required legal analysis, bring in lawyers from the parent firm. A later McDermott case study on Medicare coverage of over-the-counter COVID-19 tests describes exactly that sequence: McDermott+ organized and advocated for a coalition, then drew on McDermott lawyers to develop the legal theory supporting a potential CMS coverage pathway. (McDermott)
The practice existed before the name
The intellectual roots of McDermott+ predated the 2014 corporate launch.
McDermott already had a prominent Washington health-policy and reimbursement practice spanning Medicare payment, coverage, coding, FDA regulation and congressional advocacy. Paul Radensky, MD, JD, and Eric Zimmerman were conspicuous participants in that world. For example, both appeared on the agenda of CMS's 2013 annual Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule meeting, with Zimmerman representing McDermott and the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine and Radensky appearing for McDermott separately. (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)
The creation of McDermott+ essentially gave that kind of work a larger nonlegal platform.
At the 2014 launch, Radensky and Zimmerman were both identified as principals. Zimmerman said the objective was a “one-stop shop” combining lobbying, analytics and policy work; Radensky emphasized the growing need for quantitative analysis and for strategies that could move new technologies through complex government regulatory and payment systems. (KSL)
Zimmerman was later explicitly described by McDermott+ as a co-founder. (McDermott+)
Paul Radensky and the reimbursement side of McDermott+
For many in the diagnostics, medical-device and biotechnology communities, however, Paul Radensky became one of the people most closely identified with McDermott+.
His background was unusual even by Washington health-policy standards: an MD from the University of Pennsylvania, internal-medicine training and a fellowship in liver disease, followed by a Harvard JD. His practice joined regulatory law to the highly specialized mechanics of obtaining Medicare coverage, coding and payment for new medical technologies. McDermott credits him with work leading to national and local Medicare coverage decisions, Coverage with Evidence Development protocols and reimbursement strategies for pharmaceuticals, biologics, devices and clinical laboratory technologies. (McDermott)
That expertise helped give McDermott+ a character different from that of a general K Street shop. A client might arrive not because a bill was moving through Congress but because a diagnostic needed a coding pathway, a medical device faced an unfavorable Medicare payment methodology, a laboratory test needed a coverage strategy, or a manufacturer needed to understand the interaction among FDA status, Medicare benefit categories, CPT or HCPCS coding and CMS payment rules.
Radensky was particularly visible in diagnostics. McDermott+ work during the period included laboratory payment policy under PAMA, advanced diagnostics, medical devices, drug reimbursement and Medicare coverage. His representative activities also included the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine and coalitions involving diabetes testing and other diagnostic technologies. (McDermott+)
Radensky subsequently stepped back from his former partner status. McDermott's current website lists him as Counsel, while still stating that he serves as a principal of McDermott+; the McDermott+ site also continued to list him among its professionals in August 2026. (McDermott) In other words, the public record suggests a gradual change in role rather than a disappearance from the organization.
From reimbursement boutique to broader health-policy operation
McDermott+ also expanded well beyond the product-reimbursement work for which Radensky was known.
By 2018, four years after its founding, the firm said it had grown to ten consultants and had deliberately recruited former executive-branch officials, congressional staff and experienced policy consultants. That year it added Mara McDermott, formerly a senior federal-affairs executive for America’s Physician Groups, and Rachel Stauffer, who had worked on Capitol Hill and in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. (McDermott+)
Over time, the roster became a recognizable cross-section of Washington healthcare expertise. Debbie Curtis brought 24 years of congressional experience, including work for Rep. Pete Stark and the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. Rodney Whitlock had worked for Rep. Charlie Norwood, Sen. Chuck Grassley and the Senate Finance Committee. Jeffrey Davis had spent eight years at HHS before working at the American College of Emergency Physicians. (McDermott+)
Others brought expertise in Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, hospital prospective payment systems, medical devices, health economics, CMMI models and claims-data analysis. By August 2026, the public professional roster included roughly two dozen names spanning policy, lobbying, reimbursement and analytics. (McDermott+)
The resulting organization could operate at several levels of the healthcare-policy system simultaneously.
For manufacturers, McDermott+ offered product-level market-access work involving coverage, coding and payment. For hospitals and health systems, it worked on Medicare payment systems, rural-hospital policy and broader federal reimbursement issues. For plans and other organizations, it developed expertise in Medicare Advantage and Part D. For provider organizations and investors in delivery-system reform, it became active in accountable care and CMMI payment models. And for associations, coalitions and corporations, it offered traditional congressional and agency advocacy.
That breadth became the firm's defining proposition. Its website in August 2026 still described McDermott+ as combining consulting, policy and lobbying with data analytics and specialized knowledge of reimbursement, coding, coverage and quality reporting. (McDermott+)
A lobbying shop, but not only a lobbying shop
McDermott+ nevertheless became a substantial registered federal lobbying operation.
One recent academic analysis using OpenSecrets data found that McDermott+ reported about $4.39 million in federal lobbying revenue from 33 clients in 2024. Of that amount, approximately $1.11 million came from seven hospital-industry clients, placing McDermott+ among the larger firms lobbying for hospitals that year. Those figures capture disclosed lobbying revenue, not the company's separate consulting, analytics or reimbursement-strategy business. (JAMA Network)
Its work also illustrates how lobbying could be combined with technical policy expertise. McDermott+ represented hospital coalitions, technology companies, diagnostics firms and other healthcare interests before Congress and executive agencies. Zimmerman, for example, has served as Washington representative for Trinity Health, rural-hospital coalitions, diabetes-testing interests and the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine. (McDermott+)
Coalitions became another recurring feature of the model. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Radensky and Zimmerman led an effort bringing together five competing suppliers of at-home testing products to seek Medicare coverage. In another case, a McDermott+ team worked with a coalition of more than 25 organizations around Medicare direct contracting and what became the ACO REACH model. (McDermott)
Those engagements captured what McDermott+ could do that a reimbursement boutique, analytics shop or lobbying firm alone might have found harder: combine the technical policy argument, its economic implications, stakeholder organization and the Washington campaign required to move it.
It also became a health-policy publisher
A quieter part of the McDermott+ story was its development into a significant public-facing source of health-policy information.
The McDermottPlus Check-Up began providing regular Washington health-policy summaries by 2019. The organization added the Health Policy Breakroom podcast, regulatory commentary, election and policy previews, Medicare data tools and interactive dashboards. By 2026, its website included dedicated products for Medicare data analytics, NTAP strategy, Medicare Advantage and Part D, physician and hospital payment dashboards and a premium information service called McDermott+ Insider. (McDermott+)
In April 2024, co-founder Eric Zimmerman appeared on the Health Policy Breakroom specifically to mark McDermott+'s tenth anniversary and discuss its first decade. (McDermott+)
The public-content operation mattered partly because it kept McDermott+ visible well beyond its paying clients. Hospital executives, laboratory-policy specialists, trade-association staff, Washington lawyers and reimbursement consultants routinely encountered its summaries of proposed and final CMS rules even if they were not currently working with the firm.
That makes the reported shutdown unusually conspicuous. As recently as August 7, 2026, the McDermott+ website was still publishing its weekly Check-Up, and in early August it had posted analyses of the FY 2027 inpatient final rule and other major Medicare regulations. (McDermott+)
A changing parent organization
The closure also occurs against a changed backdrop at the parent law firm.
McDermott Will & Emery merged with New York-based Schulte Roth & Zabel effective August 1, 2025, creating McDermott Will & Schulte, a firm of roughly 1,750 lawyers across more than 20 offices. McDermott brought particular strength in healthcare, while Schulte was especially known for private capital and investment-fund work. (Reuters)
There is not yet enough public information to attribute the reported McDermott+ closure to that merger or any other factor. The parent firm continues to maintain a major healthcare practice, and several McDermott+ principals have simultaneously held roles at the law firm.
An unusual niche in Washington healthcare
McDermott+ lasted from the early years of Affordable Care Act implementation through MACRA and alternative payment models, PAMA laboratory reform, Medicare Advantage expansion, COVID-19 emergency policy, the Inflation Reduction Act and another major shift in federal health policy after the 2024 election.
Its enduring distinction was not any single one of those subjects. It was the attempt to place several professions that normally sit beside one another — health lawyers, former Hill staff, CMS and HHS veterans, reimbursement specialists, clinicians, lobbyists, economists and data analysts — inside one small organization.
For some clients, McDermott+ was essentially a Washington lobbying firm. For others, it was a Medicare reimbursement consultancy. For still others, it was a source of payment modeling, policy intelligence, coding strategy or coalition management.
And because the organization remained wholly owned by one of the country's best-known healthcare law firms, it occupied an unusual space between Big Law and K Street without being quite either one.
If the reported August 2026 shutdown proceeds as described, that hybrid organization will disappear. Much of its expertise almost certainly will not. In Washington health policy, where former agency officials, congressional staff, lawyers and consultants regularly reassemble in new combinations, the more consequential story may be where the McDermott+ people — and the functions they performed — turn up next.
