Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz has deployed a former member of Congress to lobby for a group of medical device suppliers, according to a lobbying registration report that the firm filed with Congress this week.
Former Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), a firm senior public policy adviser, is advocating for the Neurostimulus Device Alliance on "Medicare Coverage Issues," the filing says.
The paperwork doesn’t name the members of the Alliance. But the group has a Minnetonka, Minn., address that is the U.S. office of Neurotech, a division of Bio-Medical Research Ltd., a Galway, Ireland-based supplier of rehabilitative health and pain relief devices.
Neither the Alliance nor Bio-Medical Research has used a federal lobbyist before, according to congressional lobbying records that date back to 1999.
Johnson is working on the account with Baker shareholder Lance Leggitt, chairman of the firm’s federal health policy group, as well as senior public policy advisers Jennifer Summa and Laine Glisson Oliver. The team lobbied during 2011 for more than a dozen health care industry members, including United States Medical Supply Inc., St. Luke’s Episcopal Health System Corp. and U.S. Diagnostics Inc., according to congressional records.
Neither the lobbyists nor a Neurotech representative immediately responded to requests for comment.
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