Check out the Winter 2024-2025 issue of the Docket for client stories, information on our medical debt training series, and insight into HLA's policy advocacy on at-home healthcare for people with disabilities.

Families across Massachusetts are struggling to push back against denials of ABA and other services.

The Tower Foundation, the original funders of our Mental Health Advocacy Program for Kids (MHAP for Kids), includes MHAP for Kids' work in their 2023 Annual Highlights

Learn about our case stories, our policy and advocacy work, our training program, the pulse on fundraising, our DEI efforts, and updates in staff!

HLA is one of three organizations receiving grant support from the Atrius Health Equity Foundation to relieve medical debt for people with low and middle income in Eastern Massachusetts.

HLA receives a new grant from the Atrius Health Equity Foundation as part of their initiative to relieve medical debt for people in Eastern Massachusetts! This will enhance the work of our Medical Debt Initiative with expanded multilingual support.

In a recent publication the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation describes estate recovery and its impact on families in Massachusetts. Profiles of people dealing with estate recovery, including an HLA client, illustrate the issue.

In HLA and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's medical-legal partnership for immigrants, health care providers will refer immigrant patients to HLA's attorneys when they are faced with barriers to getting the care they need.

Learn about our case stories, our policy and advocacy work, our training program, the pulse on fundraising, our DEI efforts, and updates in staff!

Without sufficient support, children with limited English proficiency cannot "access the same education" as their peers, comments MHAP for Kids Staff Attorney Brian Bermudez at a hearing about legislation to strengthen interpreter services in schools.

HLA is grateful to the Boston Foundation for supporting our Gender-Diverse Healthcare Access Project and proud to be among these great organizations!

Learn about our case stories, our policy and advocacy work, our training program, the pulse on fundraising, our DEI efforts, and updates in staff!

Gender-diverse and transgender patients face challenges at every turn, with Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care differing drastically between states and the ongoing redetermination process threatening loss of coverage.

Patients are allowed to request files about denied insurance claims, including any information about why claims were denied. See guidelines for how to make this request, including a claim file request template created by HLA.

Community leaders, including HLA, Health Care For All, and Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, are here to help as the state prepares to drop hundreds of thousands of people from the MassHealth insurance program.

Learn about our case stories, our policy and advocacy work, our training program, the pulse on fundraising, our DEI efforts, and updates in staff!

Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey argue that promotion of medical credit cards could be predatory, and that the offer may lock people into plans with hidden terms that are worse than other payment plans.

Health Law Advocates’ Mental Health Advocacy Program for Kids partnered with Boston Children’s Hospital ACO to help families navigate the complex systems around mental health services.

Learn about our case stories, our policy and advocacy work, our training program, the pulse on fundraising, our DEI efforts, and updates in staff!

Grupos de pro-inmigrantes elogian a la administración Biden [Pro-immigrant groups praise the Biden administration]

HLA applauds the Biden Administration’s new Public Charge Rule which restores the ability of immigrants to participate in public benefits without jeopardizing their immigration status.

In 2014, HLA began working with the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) to facilitate the proper metrics to ensure MHAP for Kids' impact and success.

HLA joined LGBTQ advocates, health care providers and other in praising state leaders for taking swift action to ensure access to abortion and to gender-affirming care are rights secured by the constitution and laws of the Commonwealth.

Hundreds of thousands of people on MassHealth could be affected by a bill lawmakers on Beacon Hill are considering this week that involves something known as MassHealth estate recovery.

Learn about our advocacy work, our new Medical-Legal Partnership for Immigrants' sites, case victories, thank you to our volunteers, and our new summer interns!

Learn about our advocacy work, MHAP for Kids' expansion, our search for a new Head of Litigation, our diversity efforts, and the new staff members on our team!

Thousands of immigrants will become eligible for long-term care coverage under MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, thanks to a policy change that took effect Nov. 1.

There's a patient in a hospital north of Worcester who shouldn't be there. She's 75 years old and suffers from dementia. But she doesn't qualify for long-term care under the state's Medicaid program, MassHealth, because of her immigration status.

PRESIDENT BIDEN last week took the final step to rescind a controversial rule promulgated by former president Donald Trump that made it harder for aspiring immigrants to prove they would not become reliant on government assistance.

Steps advocates can take to ensure that children are receiving the early childhood special education services to which they are entitled.

MHAP for Kids is featured in a report highlighting recommendations for supporting children and families who have experienced trauma and stress during the pandemic.

"Some doctors are charging people out of pocket for covered services because (they) believe that these covered services are cosmetic," explained Andrew Cohen, a supervising attorney at Health Law Advocates (HLA)....

MHAP Dir. Marisol Garcia and MHAP Sr. Attorney Lisa Morrow wrote a toolkit for parents and advocates of youth with special needs to be used across the country.

A NEW RULE that imposes a wealth test on green card and visa applicants took effect Monday, and across Massachusetts, advocates are concerned about what this could mean for immigrants.

“It’s much more about penalizing poverty, a lack of wealth, lack of income,” said Andrew Cohen, an attorney with Health Law Advocates, during the event.

Suzanne Curry of Health Care For All and Andrew Cohen of Health Law Advocates, raised concerns about rising out-of-pocket consumer health care costs and suggested the Connector “analyze and share publicly any discernible impact of indexing deductibles.”

"Twenty immigrant families who had been allowed to remain in the United States while their severely ill children receive treatment at Boston hospitals face imminent deportation..."

“This will weaken our communities, as more of our neighbor’s lack for care and treatment for medical conditions,” said Matt Selig, executive director for Health Law Advocates.

"This is fundamentally a consumer protection [bill]," said Justin Lowe, legal director of Health Law Advocates... The payment limits would not, technically, set the price for a drug but instead cap what Massachusetts consumers or insurers pay for it.

HLA's Board President, Mala Rafik, on the cover of "Super Lawyers"

"MHAP for Kids is a lifeline that minimizes children’s exposure to the juvenile justice system and removes obstacles to the treatment and care they need to lead healthy and fulfilling lives."

"Four Massachusetts immigrant and health care advocacy groups urged communities on Sept. 25 to take actions on the proposed federal public charge policy that would penalize immigrants if they are receiving government benefits..."

Joined together as part of the national Protecting Immigrant Families campaign, the groups MLRI, MIRA, Health Care for All and Health Law Advocates said they would fight against the change and work to raise awareness of it.

“The duty to share this information with their client’s physician will help ensure that medical professionals communicate effectively with one another, without leaving patients to fall through the cracks,” said Wells G. Wilkinson.

Mala Rafik, HLA Board President and Partner at Rosenfeld & Rafik, P.C., honored with the Dr. Jim O'Connell Award at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program's Medicine That Matters Gala on May 21, 2018.

In recognition of Children's Mental Health Week: May 6-12, 2018

BOSTON, MA- HLA and Sen. Eileen Donoghue will host legislators to discuss how the Mental Health Advocacy Program for Kids (MHAP for Kids) closes gaps in the Massachusetts' children's mental health system on January 25th at the State House.

"It’s important we continue to remind people that here in Massachusetts we still have an individual mandate, and there’s still time to get insured." -Amy Rosenfeld, Executive Director at Health Care for All & HLA board member in The Boston Globe.

Proud to partner with The Boston Foundation to ensure the LGBTQ community has equitable access to health care!

HLA's Litigation Director and a member of HLA's Board of Directors contributed to the Spring issue of "The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics"

Last year alone, HLA opened 158 cases of people who were denied coverage for mental health or substance use treatment. We need to make sure people have the resources they need to access mental health and SUD treatment -- without the stigma.

HLA Staff Attorney Andrew Cohen quoted in this VICE piece regarding the disastrous ramifications for the trans community under the proposed health care bill.

Few families touched by addiction have not felt helpless rage as they read an invoice from a private treatment facility or a denial-of-coverage letter from an insurer.

Lawmakers worry those with mental health or substance abuse issues face tougher obstacles to getting care.