Overview
Maynard Nexsen’s Elder Care Practice brings together an interdisciplinary team of skilled attorneys with particular experience advising older clients and the providers that serve them. This team combines vast industry knowledge with extensive legal and regulatory expertise drawn from Maynard Nexsen’s full-service platform into a truly unique and synergistic practice. We empower our clients to successfully navigate the expanding body of law aimed at protecting this growing demographic and regulating the businesses serving them.
For decades, Maynard Nexsen has managed the estate, trust, tax, and wealth planning needs of some of the region's most affluent individuals and Family Business owners, as well as the fiduciary obligations often associated with these situations. This experience, combined with our long-standing history of representing the corporate, regulatory, and litigation interests of many institutional banking, insurance, and health care providers, equips Maynard Nexsen’s Elder Care team to help clients carefully balance their obligations to older clients, and their families.
Mitigating the Impact of Cognitive Decline
Our Elder Care team is well attuned to the layers of complexity that cognitive decline and family dynamics can bring to situations involving elder care. We understand how arguments over assets and control can leave a financial institution or healthcare provider mired in a dilemma. These institutions have a duty to protect, care for their patients, or safeguard the assets of their older customers, but often must rely on family members for direction when decision-making capacity is questioned. How does an institution know when cognitive decline reaches the point of legal incapacity? What happens when an elder’s diminished capacity combines with family infighting to create a decision-making vacuum? A healthcare provider may not know who can authorize needed care. A financial institution is left wondering whom they can trust. A small business may find itself at the brink of collapse as a declining founder’s family quarrels over assets and control or – worse yet – one of them gains control and absconds with assets. In these difficult situations, institutions need thoughtful answers to protect their patients from abuse, their clients from exploitation and themselves from costly litigation. Maynard Nexsen’s Elder Care team helps its clients navigate these uncertainties and resolve complex problems with older clients at the center. It also helps clients recognize the early warning signs of abuse and brewing conflict and develop policies aimed at avoiding costly disputes.
Regulatory Compliance
The growing population of elderly is exposed to an evolving universe of threats to its safety and financial independence. As a result, government regulations aimed at protecting this vulnerable population enjoy broad appeal, despite the costs and compliance risks they impose on businesses and providers. The financial and legal impact of failing to comply with state and federal regulations can be devastating to a business, especially those operating in the health care, insurance, and financial services sectors. The Maynard Nexsen Elder Care team keeps track of the minefield of ever-changing, multi-faceted regulations and aggressive government enforcement policies. By closely monitoring these regulatory changes, we are able to alert our clients in a timely manner and provide guidance to help them avoid costly correctional measures and unnecessary interruption to their operations.
Litigation and Investigations
When problems emerge, the Elder Care Practice’s team of experienced litigators is prepared to represent and counsel clients throughout the broad range of government investigations, enforcement actions, internal investigations, criminal prosecutions, and private litigation. When conflict erupts, Maynard Nexsen’s Elder Care Practice works diligently to resolve matters as quickly as possible with the primary goal of containing costs and minimizing loss and reputational damage to its clients. We pursue alternative dispute resolution mechanisms whenever possible but are prepared for trial when settlements cannot be reached.
Our Services
Maynard Nexsen’s Elder Care Practice is poised to provide services which include, but are not limited to:
- Training institutions, health care providers, senior living and long-term care facilities, and financial service providers to recognize, prevent and mitigate elder abuse and financial exploitation.
- Educating institutions and their management and staff on any legal obligations to report abuse, risks involved for failure to report, and reporting procedures
- Establishing best practices to protect older residents/patients/customers without invading their privacy or diminishing autonomy
- Developing asset recovery strategies to help vulnerable seniors regain their financial security after exploitation
- Restoring eligibility for long term care benefits lost due to fraudulent transfers or major gifts made under duress
- Assessing an institution’s regulatory compliance, risk management procedures, and exposure to elder exploitation claims
- Developing comprehensive admission protocols to help healthcare providers avoid future risks
- Establishing, implementing, and testing compliance and ethics programs
- Assisting long term care providers to balance profitability with patients’ rights and other regulatory obligations
- Helping clients to obtain state licensure and Certificates of Need
- Working with clients to resolve conflicts through alternative dispute resolution or litigation