Faculty Profile: Elisa Harris

Elisa Harris is a partner with Barnes & Thornburg, located in the Nashville office. Drawing from over a decade of in-house experience with Nashville based healthcare systems, Elisa guides both innovative startups and established organizations through the intricate maze of healthcare law, with a dedication to ensuring they not only comply but thrive in this rapidly evolving industry.  Elisa's unique blend of legal acumen and practical business insight proves invaluable to healthcare providers navigating today's challenges. She crafts tailored solutions for Medicare Advantage programs, managed care contracting, and value-based initiatives, with the goal of empowering clients to focus on patient care while staying ahead of regulatory hurdles.

Prior to joining Barnes & Thornburg, Elisa was General Counsel at Contessa Health, starting as an early employee and staying through its successful exit and sale to Amedisys.  Prior to that, Elisa was Senior Counsel at Tenet Healthcare, where she served as primary counsel for Tenet's three health plans, including Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, commercial, health insurance exchange and self-funded lines of business, as well as operations counsel for two hospitals.  Elisa joined Tenet through Tenet's purchase of Vanguard Health Systems where she was Assistant VP/Assistant General Counsel. At Vanguard, she provided similar health plan and hospital support but also provided legal counsel to the managed care contracting team and worked on ACO and other risk based initiatives after starting her legal career in the healthcare regulatory group at Bass, Berry & Sims PLC.