Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System Ordered to Provide Disabled People with In-Home Assistance

Arizona Center for Disability Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Peri Jude Radecic, Director of Public Advocacy

July 11, 2005 (520) 327-9547, ext. 24.

Cell: (623) 308-5111

United States District Court Issues Final Order in Ball v. Biedess

Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System Ordered to Provide

Disabled People with In-Home Assistance

Phoenix, Arizona...........On June 28, 2005, United States District Court Judge Earl H. Carroll issued a Final Order setting out the terms by which the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), Arizona’s Medicaid program, must comply to remedy gaps in critical services for disabled individuals who need personal care services in the home. Individuals with disabilities, despite having a care plan with AHCCCS to provide Home and Community Based Services, have been stranded in bed with no one to help them get out of bed, get dressed or go to the toilet. The Final Order provides people with disabilities with appropriate levels of service, including reducing the number of hours AHCCCS Program Contractors have to fill gaps in the delivery of critical services from four to two hours and the implementation of a new grievance procedure to report gaps in services. In addition, the Final Order forces AHCCCS to comply with these and other remedies by August 15, 2005.

The Final Order came nearly one year after the Court ordered AHCCCS to implement sweeping changes in its Home and Community Based Services program. On August 13, 2004, Judge Carroll ordered AHCCCS to make extensive reforms which included: providing services for each qualified individual without gaps in service; developing adequate alternative or contingency plans when a service is unable to be provided; offering a rate of pay to health care workers to attract and retain workers so that services are adequately delivered; monitoring its entire program to detect gaps in service and deliver substitute services within four hours when a worker fails to show up; and implementing a grievance process to allow members to report gaps in services, and inform each member of their rights ordered by the U.S. District Court.

“This order provides far more specific relief with clear time tables for implementation,” said Sally Hart, Staff Attorney at the Arizona Center for Disability Law. “Judge Carroll has provided very specific direction to AHCCCS to remedy critical and urgent needs of some of our most vulnerable home-bound citizens.”

The lawsuit was filed by the Arizona Center for Disability Law (Center) after having received many complaints from individuals with disabilities who failed to receive their prescribed home and community based services from AHCCCS such as attendant care, personal care, housekeeper services, and respite care. The Center filed a class action lawsuit seeking to make system wide changes to vital parts of this important AHCCCS program. The case went to trial in October 2003.

AHCCCS had requested a stay and appealed Judge Carroll’s August 13, 2004 decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On May 17, 2005, the Ninth Circuit denied the stay request and oral argument on the appeal could come as early as October 2005.

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The Arizona Center for Disability Law is a not for profit public interest law firm, dedicated to protecting the rights of individuals with a wide range of physical, mental, psychiatric, sensory and cognitive disabilities. The Arizona Center for Disability Law is authorized under various federal statutes to ensure the protection and advocacy of all individuals with disabilities in the state.

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