“Service is the Rent We Pay for Living”
At Rosenfeld & Rafik, P.C., we strive to abide by the wise words of Marian Wright Edelman, notable humanitarian and activist. We do this through passionately and aggressively advocating within the healthcare law system for chronically ill and disabled individuals. Far too many people are routinely denied benefits that they are entitled to receive. Please contact a lawyer from our firm to arrange a consultation with an experienced legal advocate.
How We Practice Law
Every client is important to us. Virtually all our clients are going through the most difficult period of their lives. Their plight is compounded by the policies and practices of insurance companies that are resisting benefits just when they are needed most. Our role is to lift the burden of fighting for benefits off the shoulders of our clients and to take responsibility for achieving effective relief. We emphasize client contact. We also work hard to gain relief as early in the process as possible. Mostly, we win internal appeals–our appeals currently total millions of dollars in benefits–but it is our litigation victories that make it clear we will fight to the end for our clients.
Healthcare Law is a Matter of Human Rights
Attorneys Steve Rosenfeld and Mala Rafik, partners at Rosenfeld & Rafik, P.C., play leadership roles in several organizations whose work is related in some way to the firm’s practice areas. Our volunteer work and community activism is part of the larger steps we take toward changing public policy to recognize healthcare as a basic human right.
Steve Rosenfeld is a board member of Health Care for All (http://www.hcfama.org), Health Law Advocates (http://www.healthlawadvocates.org), Community Catalyst (http://www.communitycatalyst.org), Commonwealth Care Alliance (http://www.commonwealthcare.org), and the Boston Center for Independent Living (http://www.bostoncil.org).
Mala Rafik serves on the boards of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (http://www.aclum.org), Health Law Advocates (http://www.healthlawadvocates.org) , Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services (http://www.mcls.net) and Massachusetts Advocates for Children (http://www.massadvocates.org).
Community Involvement
The partners of R&R, Steve Rosenfeld and Mala Rafik, play leadership roles in several organizations whose work is related in some way to the firm’s practice areas. In this way, the firm uses its experience, through volunteer work, to attack serious community problems.
Mala Rafik serves on the boards of the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts (http://www.aclu.com) and Massachusetts Advocates for Children (http://www.massadvocates.org), the leading organization in Massachusetts advocating for the education rights of special needs and other vulnerable children. She is a board member of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services (http://www.mcls.org), the highly-respected provider of legal representation to Massachusetts inmates.
Steve Rosenfeld is chairman of the Urban Medical Group (http://www.umg.org) a nonprofit medical practice that concentrates on the needs of frail elders and the chronically ill. For 10 years (1997-2007) he was a board member of Health Care For All (http://www.hcfama.org), the leading health policy and advocacy organization in Massachusetts. In 1996 he founded Health Law Advocates (http://www.hla-inc.org), a nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to seeking health care access for individuals and groups unable to afford legal representation. He is both a member of its board and its volunteer legal director. He is also board member and senior legal adviser to Community Catalyst (http://www.communitycatalyst.org), a national organization whose mission is to assist state and local organizations throughout the country who are advocating for health care access. He is also a member of the board of Commonwealth Care Alliance (http://www.commonwealthcare.org), a nonprofit organization that provides a total system of health care to people throughout Massachusetts who because of their poor health receive both Medicare and Medicaid assistance.
In addition, the firm provides financial support to several other social service and advocacy organizations.
Representation of Non-profits
Rosenfeld & Rafik’s Nonprofit Clients
R&R limits its representation of nonprofit organizations to those with a direct connection to its individual clients practice. These are organizations whose mission is to provide health care services to the most vulnerable people in our communities. Our two longest-standing client organizations are as follows:
Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program
BHCHP was created in 1985 to provide high-quality health care services to homeless people in Greater Boston. It is recognized as the most innovative and successful program of its type in the country. It now operates in 45 different sites, and sends its van out every night on the streets of Boston. It has admitting privileges at the Boston Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. It also operates a respite care facility for homeless persons in transition from inpatient hospital care. Recently, it successfully passed $32 million in its capital campaign, which will finance the renovation of the Mallory Building in Boston, to provide clinical and respite services for the homeless, as well as a new home for its administrative offices.
R&R became BHCHP’s general counsel in 1996. We have provided constant advice on all phases of BHCHP’s operations, including patients’ rights, employment issues, real estate, governance and every unique twist imaginable.
Commonwealth Care Alliance
Although CCA began operations in 2003, R&R’s legal representation of CCA and its prototypes and predecessors dates back to 1996. The visionary Chief Executive Officer of CCA is Dr. Robert Master, who for his entire career, dating back to the early 1970’s, has been dedicated to providing innovative systems of care to those most involved with the health care system – frail elderly patients and people with serious chronic conditions. R&R began representing Dr. Master in these efforts in 1996, at which time it helped him transfer his predecessor to CCA – Community Medical Alliance – to Neighborhood Health Plan (NHP), the private HMO serving Medicaid clients. Community Medical Alliance (CMA) was, and is, a specialty HMO for the severely disabled receiving Medicaid benefits.
Commonwealth Care Alliance has built on Dr. Master’s unrivalled experience in creating effective financing systems for people with chronic conditions, to the point where it is recognized today as the leading nonprofit company using Medicare and Medicaid dollars to improve the health status of its members, principally by providing a team of doctors, nurse practitioners and others to assist and monitor and avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.
R&R helped create Commonwealth Care Alliance, designed its corporate structure, its by-laws and its initial governance design. R&R continues to advice CCA today, principally on the development of strategic partnerships necessary to the growth of its membership.