Paula Tironi joined the Legal Division of the American Dental Association in January, 2010. Her practice areas include data privacy and security issues, including HIPAA, state data security and breach notification laws, and industry privacy and security standards; civil rights and disabilities laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act; health law issues including reimbursement, fraud and abuse, and legal issues pertaining to research.

Paula serves as legal advisor to the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs (CSA), the Commission on Continuing Education Provider Recognition (CCEPR), and the Strategic Planning Committee. She is a member of the American Dental Association Dental Experience and Research Exchange (DERE) development team. Paula works with the ADA Washington D.C. office to develop comments to proposed federal regulations pertaining to health law and data privacy and security. She also co-leads the ADA Legal Division’s law student extern program. Paula previously worked as Corporate Legal Counsel to manufacturing corporation Armstrong International, Inc. and served on the board of directors of the Chicago based mental health foundation BeyondOCD. Paula graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and her LL.M. in health law from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. She is the author of two articles in the Loyola University Chicago Annals of Health Law: Pharmaceutical Pricing: A Review of Proposals to Improve Access and Affordability of Prescription Drugs, and The "Stark" Reality: Is the Federal Physician Self-Referral Law Bad for the Health Care Industry? She also co-authored Legal Restrictions on Decision Making for Children with Life-Threatening Illnesses -CAPTA and the Ashley Treatment in the Virtual Mentor, American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. Paula has developed and presented numerous member resources for the ADA, including publications and continuing education courses.

Paula is a Certified International Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) through the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and a member of the American Health Law Association and the Illinois Association of Healthcare Attorneys. She has served as an adjunct professor of law in the Master of Jurisprudence in Health Law program at Loyola University Chicago School of Law Beazley Institute of Health Law and Policy.

Before becoming a lawyer, Paula worked as a radio announcer and in the dental office of her father, Joseph P. Tironi, DDS. Paula volunteers for WorldChicago and serves as a dinner host for visitors to the United States through the U.S. State Department International Visitor Leadership Program.

Disclosures: None to report