Current Employment Position(s)

Partner

Lawyer Overview

Melinda A. Agsten is Chair of Wiggin and Dana’s Health Care Department as well as Chair of its Tax Exempt Organizations Practice Group. Ms. Agsten advises health care organizations, including hospitals, integrated systems, clinics, home health care agencies, and other providers, on their governance, corporate, exemption, patient, regulatory, and operating matters. Her regulatory experience includes certificate of need at the Connecticut Office of Health Care Access, Medicare reimbursement and regulation, and licensure matters at DPH. She has extensive experience with charity care issues and policies, bed funds, and related payment and billing issues.

Ms. Agsten also has a substantial practice advising a wide variety of non-profit tax-exempt organizations on corporate, governance, federal and state tax exemption, and regulatory matters. She advises charitable organizations about the investment and use of endowment and other charitable funds, charitable solicitation, and investigations by state regulatory entities such as the Attorney General. A frequent speaker on governance and exemption, her most recent speaking engagements have focused on Nonprofit Governance After Sarbanes-Oxley, Conflicts of Interest, and Executive Compensation, including the federal Intermediate Sanctions.

Ms. Agsten lectures on both the national and state level. She has been named by the Best Lawyers in America in the category for best health care lawyers every year from inception of the category (for more about the standards for inclusion in Best Lawyers in America, please see http://www.bestlawyers.com/news/default.aspx ). She is a member of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, past President of the Connecticut Health Lawyers Association, and a member of the American and Connecticut Bar Associations, the ABA’s Committee on Exempt Organizations of the Section of Taxation, the American Health Lawyers Association, and the Healthcare Financial Management Association.

She currently serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors of The Foote School, an independent school in New Haven, and chairs its Governance Committee. She is a past Director of the Connecticut Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association and served for a number of years on the Board of Finance of the City of New Haven and on its Financial Review and Audit Commission.

She graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude from Duke University and received her J.D. from Vanderbilt University, where she was an associate editor of the Vanderbilt Law Review.

Areas of Practice

• Health Care
• Education
• Tax Exempt Organizations

West Practice Categories

Health & Health Care Law, Education Law, Non-profit & Tax-exempt Organizations

Bar Admissions

• Connecticut, 1975

Professional Associations and Memberships

• American Bar Association (Exempt Organizations Committee)
• Connecticut Bar Associations, Health Law Section
• American Health Lawyers Association
• Connecticut Health Lawyers Association
• Healthcare Financial Management Association

Education

• Vanderbilt University School of Law, Nashville, Tennessee, 1975
  J.D.
  
  Law Review: Vanderbilt Law Review, Associate Editor, 1974 - 1975
• Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 1972
  A.B.
  Honors: magna cum laude

Address

One Century Tower
P.O. Box 1832
265 Church Street
New Haven, CT 06508-1832

Phones

(203) 498-4326

Faxes

(203) 782-2889

Emails

Contact Us

Websites

http://www.wiggin.com