Before joining HSPRD, Andrés was a shareholder at Robbins DiMonte, Ltd., where he founded and directed the law firm’s national disability rights practice, focused primarily on improving access to healthcare and wellness programs for persons across all categories of disabilities. Through Andrés’ direction and leadership, a three-prong approach of education (for consumers and providers), advocacy, and, when required, litigation, was used to effectuate systemic change. Andrés led negotiations that compelled seven of the leading national eye care providers, two of the leading national dental care providers and two leading national providers of retail health clinics to modify their exam or operatory rooms, where required, among other things, to ensure persons with mobility disabilities utilizing wheelchairs receive care and treatment comparable to that received by their nondisabled counterparts. He led the practice’s Structured Negotiation with healthcare systems, managed care organizations and hospitals, among others, to address the varied needs of all categories of people with disabilities.
That disability rights practice received the Outstanding Achievement Award from The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and the Excellence in Accessibility Advocacy Award from the Illinois Association of the Deaf.
Andrés also provides advice and counsel to healthcare and other entities on compliance matters relating to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as well as state and local human and civil rights laws, ordinances, and regulations. Andrés represents individuals, and classes of individuals, with disabilities to address violations of those civil and human rights laws. In 2022, Andrés and his litigation team were approved by a Federal District Court Judge to serve as class counsel in a case addressing neglected public right-of-way throughout a Central Illinois municipality on behalf of a certified class of people with mobility disabilities.
In February 2018, Andrés received a congressional appointment to the National Council on Disability, a federal independent agency that advises the President, Congress and federal agencies on all policy matters affecting persons with disabilities in the country and in its territories. In January 2021, on the afternoon of his inauguration, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. appointed Andrés to be the Chairman the National Council on Disability.
Andrés was recently elected as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association on Health & Disability, a cross-disability national nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring health equity for children and adults with disabilities through policy, research, education, and dissemination. He is the past Chairman of the Board of Directors for Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago, Chicago’s Center for Independent Living, and was been a member of its Board from 2010 – 2022. Andres is also a member of the Board of Directors of Disability Lead, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase civic engagement and diverse leadership in the Chicago region by developing and building a network of leaders with disabilities. Andrés is a former two-term member of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Illinois, appointed by the Illinois governor in 2010.
In November 2018, Andrés was named to the Healthy Children and Families Transition Committee for Illinois governor-elect J.B. Pritzker’s transition team and was subsequently tasked to co-chair the transition team’s Committee on Equality, Equity and Opportunity. In addition, Andrés was selected as a Delegate by the National Council on Disability to its Summit on National Disability Policy in 2010. He was the co-founder and the co-chairman of Illinois in Motion, a coalition fostering spinal cord injury cure research funding. In that capacity, Andrés’ advocacy before the Illinois legislature in the 2000 and 2005 legislative sessions was instrumental in the passage of the spinal cord injury awareness month (September) declaration, and spinal cord injury cure research funding legislation.
Andrés has a wealth of experience representing clients in business transactions and serves effectively as “in-house counsel” to healthcare clients; provides proactive daily legal advice on a broad array of matters to clients’ executive management and directors. He renders comprehensive guidance to healthcare clients in negotiating and structuring multi-party agreements between healthcare providers, and between healthcare providers and HMOs, PPOs and other third-party payers in compliance with applicable federal and state laws and regulations.
In addition to his business law expertise, Andrés analyzes and expertly guides healthcare clients through the maze of federal and state fraud, waste and abuse statutes and regulations, as well as on the prohibitions on physician self-referrals and professional licensing compliance matters.
Andrés is a frequent lecturer, at the national and local level, on the disability rights movement, health equity for persons with disabilities, the rights of persons with disabilities under Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the application of the federal antidiscrimination laws to healthcare providers. He has authored articles on those topics appearing in state and national publications. He is a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Illinois Chicago’s medical school and law school.
In May 2022, Andrés delivered the commencement address to the 204th graduating class of Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Public Service honoris causa. In 2015, Andrés was the recipient of the prestigious Paul G. Hearne Leadership Award from the American Association of People with Disabilities in recognition of his outstanding leadership, advocacy, and dedication to the broader cross disability community.
Andrés is of Chilean descent and a veteran of the United States Air Force, having served honorably for fourteen years. Andrés graduated with Honors from the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. He earned his Juris Doctor from Saint Louis University School of Law, in St. Louis, Missouri.
Andrés is a member of the disability community, Class of 1996, having sustained a spinal cord injury, resulting in quadriplegia. In September 2014, Andrés ascended, in a manual wheelchair, to the summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, Colorado, along the Pikes Peak Highway, in support of the Brain Injury Alliance of Colorado. It took him just over six hours to reach the summit, at an elevation of 14,100 feet from its base at an elevation of 7,300 feet.
