LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - A Pulaski County judge has issued an order barring the state of Arkansas from changing the level of in-home services it provides to seven disabled Medicaid recipients until their lawsuit is resolved.
The seven are suing the state Department of Human Services over changes in how their benefits are determined. Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen on Friday barred the state from making changes until July when the lawsuit is scheduled for trial, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported (https://bit.ly/2kEvAFI ).
Griffen said that while his findings are preliminary, the plaintiffs had shown him sufficient evidence that DHS had not done enough to comply with the state’s Administrative Procedures Act, which establishes how state agencies have to advertise rule changes and seek public comment before making changes.
The seven are enrolled in the ARChoices program, which provides an in-home caretaker for a fixed number of hours per month, with that number of hours based on the medical needs of each client.
DHS now uses a computer program known as ARPath to determine the number of hours each patient receives and Griffen said not enough was done to advertise the change from using a nurse who consulted the computer program before determining the hours.
None of the plaintiffs appeared in court because their disabilities make traveling difficult, but one, Louella Jones, 54, testified by phone from her home in Mountain Home.
Jones, who has cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and heart problems, described how sometimes she went hungry, struggled to use the toilet or wore soiled clothing when her caregiver’s weekly hours were cut from 40 to 19.
That cutback, until it was reversed on appeal, reduced her in-home attendant from eight hours a day to two to three, Jones said.
“Due to my disabilities, my body moves slower and it’s difficult to get all my daily needs in eight hours,” she said, adding that she is at risk of falling.
“My main worry was if I did fall, how long would it be before someone could get to me,” Jones told the judge.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Kevin De Liban said the paperwork the agency published to satisfy the disclosure requirements of the Procedures Act did almost nothing to inform ARChoices members about what the agency was doing.
He said the few references to the ARPath computer program that the Human Services Department did disclose were hidden in an ocean of “bureaucratic jargon.”
DHS attorney Rich Rosen argued that the department fully complied with the disclosure law. He said the changes weren’t significant enough to require the Human Services Department to describe in detail.
“We don’t need to publish every little detail,” he said. “We don’t have to get into minutia.”
ARChoices has about 10,000 disabled members, all of whom are poor and many of whom are elderly.
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Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, https://www.arkansasonline.com
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