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You can now enter into a Postnuptial Agreement in Ohio!

Client Alert

Earlier this year, Ohio was one of just two states (Iowa) that did not permit couples to enter into postnuptial agreements – agreements made between married couples that separate their marital and non-marital property in the event of death or a future divorce. The Ohio Legislature changed this on March 23, 2023, when it passed S.B. 210 legalizing these agreements.

The new law considers that a couple’s financial health and goals often change throughout their marriage and that they should have the option to terminate or update an existing prenuptial agreement, or execute (and later modify if needed) a postnuptial agreement, to reflect these changes. To exercise any one of these options, the following conditions must be satisfied: 1) the agreement is in writing and signed by both spouses; 2) the agreement is entered into freely without fraud, duress, coercion, or overreaching; 3) there was full disclosure, or full knowledge, and understanding of the nature, value, and extent of the property of both spouses; and 4) the terms do not promote or encourage divorce or profiteering by divorce.[1]

Life is unpredictable and the new law affords Ohio couples greater flexibility when planning for their futures, which most likely look very different now than they did before marriage. The law also takes the pressure off engaged couples who are contemplating entering into a prenuptial agreement. Additionally, the ability to enter into a postnuptial agreement lessens the burden of dividing up assets if a couple were to ultimately divorce.

For questions regarding S.B. 210 and your options, please contact Cassandra Manna at clmanna@bmdllc.com or (216) 658-2206.

[1]  S.B. 210, 134th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ohio 2023). 


New York, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Delaware Become the latest States to Adopt Full Practice Authority for Nurse Practitioners

While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly created many obstacles and hardships, it also created many opportunities to try doing things differently. This can be seen in the instant rise of remote work opportunities, telehealth visits, and virtual meetings. Many States took the challenges of the pandemic and turned them into an opportunity to adjust the regulations governing licensed professionals, including for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs).

Explosive Growth in Pot of Gold Opportunity for Bank (and Other) Cannabis Lenders Driving Erosion of the Barriers

Our original article on bank lending to the cannabis industry anticipated that the convergence of interest between banks and the cannabis industry would draw more and larger banks to the industry. Banks were awash in liquidity with limited deployment options, while bankable cannabis businesses had rapidly growing needs for more and lower cost credit. Since then, the pot of gold opportunity for banks to lend into the cannabis industry has grown exponentially due to a combination of market constraints on equity causing a dramatic shift to debt and the ever-increasing capital needs of one of the country’s fastest growing industries. At the same time, hurdles to entry of new banks are being systematically cleared as the yellow brick road to the cannabis industry’s access to the financial markets is being paved, brick by brick, by the progressively increasing number and size of banks that are now entering the market.

2021 EEOC Charge Statistics: Retaliation & Impact of Remote Work

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released its detailed information on workplace discrimination charges it received in 2021. Unsurprisingly, for the second year in a row, the total number of charges decreased as COVID-19 either shut down workplaces or disconnected employees from each other. In 2021, the agency received a total of approximately 61,000 workplace discrimination charges - the fewest in 25 years by a wide margin. For reference, the agency received over 67,000 charges in 2020, and averaged almost 90,000 charges per year over the previous 10 years.

Ohio’s Managed Care Overhaul Delayed – New Implementation Timeline

At the direction of Governor Mike DeWine, the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) launched the Medicaid Managed Care Procurement process in 2019. ODM’s stated vision for the procurement was to focus on people and not just the business of managed care. This is the first structural change to Ohio’s managed care system since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) approval of Ohio’s Medicaid program in 2005. Initially, all of the new managed care programs were supposed to be implemented starting on July 1, 2022. However, ODM Director Maureen Corcoran recently confirmed that this date will be pushed back for several managed care-related programs.

Laboratory Specimen Collection Arrangements with Contract Hospitals - OIG Advisory Opinion 22-09

On April 28, 2022, the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) published an Advisory Opinion[1] in which it evaluated a proposed arrangement where a network of clinical laboratories (the “Requestor”) would compensate hospitals (each a “Contract Hospital”) for specimen collection, processing, and handling services (“Collection Services”) for laboratory tests furnished by the Requestor (the “Proposed Arrangement”). The OIG concluded that the Proposed Arrangement would generate prohibited remuneration under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”) if the requisite intent were present. This is due to both the possibility that the proposed per-patient-encounter fee would be used to induce or reward referrals to Requestor and the associated risk of improperly steering patients to Requestor.