Excerpt from the Denver Post: (click for entire article)
A group of disabled Coloradans who say their Medicaid benefits were cut without warning is suing the state, claiming the reductions strapped their budgets for in-home health care just before the holidays.
The complaint against the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing is the second filed this month alleging the Medicaid program is treating disabled people unfairly.
The latest lawsuit isn't focused on the cuts in benefits — the entire Medicaid program was slammed with budget reductions this fall — but the lack of notice.
Up to 750 disabled residents rely on monthly Medicaid benefits to pay nurses and caregivers to help them bathe, dress, cook and take medications in their homes. They are enrolled in a program that lets them hire, fire and manage their own attendants instead of working through a home-health agency.
Some of those in the program received letters in October informing them of a 1.5 percent cut in their allocation — retroactive to Sept. 1 — without explanation or, they claim, legally required notice that they were allowed to appeal.
Other patients received no notification at all.
The lawsuit, which seeks to represent the whole class of Medicaid beneficiaries, alleges the cut was more than cuts levied on other people who receive home-health services.
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