Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, adult day care centers, and other senior housing facilities across the region rely on Tydings for legal counsel informed by decades of health care industry experience. Our involvement in the senior housing sector includes policy and regulatory advocacy, litigation, and representation in general business matters.
We advocate on behalf of the senior housing industry before the Maryland legislature, the state executive branch, and numerous state and federal agencies. Our attorneys often deal with the Maryland Department of Health, Maryland Department of Aging, Office of Health Care Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS"), and other governmental agencies.
We are also familiar with licensing issues, Medicare and Medicaid certification and reimbursement, the certificate of need process, disciplinary cases before the health occupations licensing boards, and the Maryland Department of Aging Certificate of Registration procedures.
Our attorneys also advise in areas critical to the prosperous operation of long-term care and senior housing facilities. We give employers advice and counsel on all types of employment law issues, including employment disputes, employee compensation, discrimination, EEOC claims, and benefits as well as corporate issues, including taxation, contracts, corporate governance, business formation, mergers, and acquisitions.
We counsel and represent long-term care facilities on risk management issues, including powers of attorney, health care decision making, and guardianships. We are experienced in obtaining guardianships for residents who do not have an appointed health care decision maker, or when there is conflict about potential surrogate decision makers. We also assist our clients in working with families to resolve health care decision making disputes. We have handled contested and uncontested guardianships in Maryland's circuit courts, and are familiar with the procedures unique to each jurisdiction.
We also advise senior housing clients in connection with land acquisition, zoning approvals, and financing; and, we have helped them establish integrated delivery systems and other business combinations.
Finally, our litigators have successfully challenged an array of state and federal Medicaid enforcement procedures, defended clients in medical malpractice claims and injunctive actions, and challenged numerous administrative procedures and rules on behalf of our long-term care and senior housing clients.
Representative Matters
- Represented national and Maryland-based corporations, including the nation’s largest owner of assisted living facilities, in acquisitions and sales of facilities in Maryland;
- Drafted resident agreements, policies and procedures, and other documents for health care providers and senior-housing projects, to ensure regulatory compliance and avoid legal liability;
- Defended a national assisted living facility company in a federal Fair Housing Act claim;
- Represented Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) throughout the process of obtaining a CCRC Certificate of Registration from the Maryland Department of Aging;
- Litigated one of the two federal cases that convinced the CMS to change a significant Medicaid regulation so that skilled nursing facilities will have the right to a hearing before an administrative law judge and full judicial review when training programs for nurses’ aides are suspended;
- Represented national and Maryland-based health care companies in obtaining exceptions to, and quick review of, licensing requirements from the Department of Health;
- Represented the co-owner of two assisted living facilities in the client’s divorce from the other co-owner of the company, in a case that was featured in a prominent Baltimore publication;
- Represented long-term care facilities in survey and certification enforcement actions before the Maryland Department of Health and the CMS;
- Litigated before the Office of Administrative Hearings in cases such as Medicaid reimbursement disputes, denials of Medicaid eligibility and benefits, and denial, suspension, and revocation of facility licenses;
- Represented clients in commercial tort and contract claims, including check and health care fraud;
- Provided numerous senior housing clients with in-house risk management training;
- Litigated on behalf of senior housing and health care facilities over debt collection;
- Defend senior housing and long-term care facilities facing the possible imposition of civil money penalties;
- Representing senior housing and long term care facilities before the Office of Administrative Hearings on matters such as Medicaid reimbursement, involuntary discharges, Medicaid enrollment for residents, and imposition of sanctions;
- Representing senior housing and long term care facilities, ambulatory care and surgical centers, homes for the developmentally disabled, home health care agencies, and other types of health care facilities before the Office of Health Care Quality in all different types of regulatory procedures, including, but not limited to, initial licensure, preparing for surveys, drafting plans of correction, preparing for IDRs, case resolution conferences, imposition of deficiencies and sanctions up to and including license revocation and decertification from Medicaid and Medicare programs; and
- Practiced before the Maryland Health Care Commission and other boards established by the Health Occupations statutes.
Representative Clients
We have represented or currently represent the following clients:
- Aureus Group, LLC
- Brightview Senior Living, LLC
- Brookdale Senior Housing, Inc.
- Country Meadows Retirement Communities
- Emeritus Senior Living
- Fahrney-Keedy Home and Village
- Fountain Square Properties LLC
- Friends House Retirement Community
- Holly Hill Manor, Inc.
- Ivy Hall Geriatric & Rehabilitation Center, Inc.
- Landow House and Ring House of Hebrew Home of Greater Washington
- Maryland Masonic Homes
- Prime Care Properties, Inc.
- Quail Run Elder Care Communities
- Roland Park Place
- Skipjack LLC
- Sunrise Senior Living, Inc.
- Trans Healthcare, Inc.
- White Oak Senior Care LLC
- White Pine Senior Housing, Inc.
- Woodlands Assisted Living, Inc.