Litigation, Disputes, and Expert Support in Healthcare: What Counsel Needs to Know (VMG Health)

G. Don Barbo, Managing Director | VMG Health

G. Don Barbo is a Managing Director at VMG Health specializing in healthcare business valuation and litigation support. With more than 23 years of exclusive healthcare industry experience, Don leads the firm’s litigation and disputes valuation practice, delivering rigorous financial analysis and expert testimony in high stakes matters involving health systems, physician practices, ambulatory surgery centers, and other complex healthcare entities.

Education & Credentials

• Don holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Texas Tech University and a Master of Business Administration from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and holds the Accreditation in Business Valuation (ABV) from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Recognition & Leadership

• Don has contributed thought leadership through service on the Technical Advisory Board for the AICPA’s Forensics & Valuation Section Consulting Digest and the Financial Valuation and Litigation Expert newsletter. He has provided deposition and trial testimony in numerous federal and state court proceedings across more than two decades of complex healthcare matters.

Professional Involvement

• Don is an active member of the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). He has served on advisory boards for the AICPA’s forensic and valuation practice and has been a frequent speaker before legal and valuation organizations nationwide. He has also authored and published articles on healthcare business valuation, contributing to the broader professional community’s understanding of complex financial issues in the healthcare sector.

Experience

• Don began his career as a Big 4 auditor before serving as controller and CFO for several companies, including a physician practice management firm. At VMG Health, he has spent over two decades performing healthcare valuations across mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, financial reporting, and commercial damages with litigation support experience spanning whistleblower actions, shareholder disputes, breach of contract matters, and marital asset division in both state and federal courts.

Ingrid Aguirre, Director Business Valuation | VMG Health

Ingrid Aguirre is a Director at VMG Health specializing in litigation within the Business Valuation Practice. She provides valuation, transaction advisory, and litigation consulting services to healthcare clients including hospitals, health systems, ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, laboratories, physician groups, law firms, and governmental agencies.

Education & Credentials

• Ingrid earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Baylor University and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation from the CFA Institute.

Recognition & Leadership

• Ingrid is a member of the Young Professionals Committee with the CFA Society of Dallas Fort Worth, reflecting her active engagement in the professional financial community and commitment to advancing valuation standards.

Professional Involvement

• Ingrid is an active member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Dallas Fort Worth. She contributes regularly to VMG Health’s thought leadership, authoring published articles on expert witness roles, solvency opinions, healthcare business disputes, and government takings in the healthcare sector.

Experience

• At VMG Health, Ingrid provides valuation and advisory services across transactions, joint ventures, and financial reporting matters, as well as expert witness and rebuttal analyses in complex civil and criminal litigation. Her practice focuses on ambulatory surgery centers and physician practices, with broader experience spanning the full spectrum of healthcare entities. Her litigation work encompasses a range of matters where precise, defensible financial analysis is critical to case outcomes.

I. Partnering Effectively with a Financial Expert | 1:00pm – 1:15pm

Successful healthcare litigation often hinges on how well counsel and a financial expert work together from the outset. This program explores best practices for engaging an expert early, defining roles, and building a collaborative workflow that produces analysis courts find credible and opposing counsel finds difficult to attack. Attendees will learn how to communicate case objectives, manage data flow, and leverage expert insight to sharpen litigation strategy and minimize exposure to financial damages.

II. Understanding the Scope of Expertise | 1:15pm – 1:30pm

Not all financial experts are created equally and knowing what your expert can credibly address is as important as knowing when to retain one. This part surveys the full range of matters a qualified healthcare financial expert can support, including physician compensation benchmarking, fair market value opinions, shareholder and employment disputes, buy/sell transaction valuations, and economic damages calculations. Attendants will leave with a clearer picture of when and how to deploy financial expertise across the spectrum of healthcare disputes.

III. Avoiding Common Partnership Pitfalls | 1:30pm – 2:00pm

Even experienced litigators can undermine a strong expert by falling into preventable traps from delayed engagement and poor document management to misaligned assumptions and overreaching opinions. This segment identifies the most frequent breakdowns in the counsel-expert relationship and offers actionable strategies to keep the partnership on track. Attendees will learn how to structure communications, prepare experts for deposition and cross-examination, and safeguard the integrity of expert opinions throughout the life of a case.