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Thursday, April 01, 2010

Ind. Courts - "Disputed welfare practices don't hold up in court" [Updated]

Jon Murray of the Indianapolis Star has a long story today on recent state court challenges to welfare practices. His sidebar gives details about the rulings:

Three recent court rulings granted summary judgment to plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on issues involving welfare services:
  • Medicaid disability appeals: Marion Superior Court Judge David Dreyer ruled March 1 against a change in January 2008 that made appeal hearings by telephone the default option for those denied Medicaid disability benefits. The rule applied to counties -- not including Marion and surrounding counties -- where contractors had taken over operation of welfare services. In-person hearings were still available by request.

    Dreyer found the automatic telephonic hearings ran afoul of an Indiana law requiring a "place" for such a hearing, and applicants weren't given the opportunity to knowingly waive that right. The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration disputes the ruling but reverted back to face-to-face hearings last fall.

  • Benefit denials: In another case, Dreyer issued a split decision March 1. He found that the agency failed to provide sufficient guidance to applicants when denying eligibility or recertification for food stamps. They received notices of "failure to cooperate" because of incomplete applications -- but federal law allows denials only when applicants refuse to supply proper documentation.

    But Dreyer rejected a similar claim for a larger group that includes applicants denied on similar grounds for Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. He found that the agency provided sufficient information and due process in those instances.

    The judge also ruled that the agency violated federal law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, when Sheila Perdue, a Madison County woman who is mostly deaf, was denied recertification for food stamps and Medicaid. She was told she must participate in an interview by phone because caseworkers were no longer available to meet in person.

  • Cap on in-home care: Clay Superior Court Judge J. Blaine Akers ruled March 8 that a 40-hour-per-week cap on attendant care for disabled Medicaid recipients violated numerous state and federal laws. Recipients lived at home instead of in assisted-living facilities under the Aged and Disabled Waiver program; about 100, or 2 percent, exceeded the cap imposed in July 2008.

    Akers made permanent a preliminary injunction he had entered against the cap in December 2008.

What's next

The Indiana attorney general and the FSSA have moved to appeal the telephonic appeals ruling and are considering their options in the other cases. The ACLU already has filed a notice that it will appeal the part of the benefit denials ruling that found in the FSSA's favor, said ACLU attorney Gavin Rose. If the Marion County rulings stand, the FSSA may have to contact thousands of people affected by those policies.

Some quotes from the story itself:
When Gov. Mitch Daniels pulled the plug in October on a privatization contract that was the cornerstone of an aggressive welfare services modernization plan, he said it simply didn't work.

But the arrangement's inefficiency, lost paperwork and wrongly denied benefits weren't the only problems. A judge has ruled that parts of the modernization push also violated the law.

Two recent rulings from a Marion County judge and a third from Clay County delivered a new slap to the state's welfare services agency over several practices, including the handling of denials for some benefits and appeals for others.

The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is forging ahead by testing a new "hybrid" plan in some places. In the meantime, dozens of counties still operate with vestiges of the aborted modernization attempt -- and with one of the two disputed practices. * * *

[L]ast month's rulings -- in class-action lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana -- raised questions about the way the agency has denied some benefits in recent years.

One overruled the use, starting in 2008, of automatic appeals by telephone instead of in person for those denied Medicaid disability benefits in counties selected for the old modernization plan.

Another ruling targeted the vague denials issued for incomplete food stamp applications, ascribing a "failure to cooperate."

The notices, which provided little guidance on how to correct errors, became an issue particularly in modernizing areas because some paperwork was lost as documents were scanned into the new computerized file system.

The state denies those practices were unlawful.

In the food stamp denials case, the ACLU lost on another claim that targeted similar denials issued to a larger group of applicants for programs including Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The judge ruled that different rules applied to those programs under federal law.

In the third ruling, the Clay County judge found unlawful on several fronts a 2008 cap on at-home attendant care services for disabled Medicaid recipients. That practice was not directly related to the modernization effort. * * *

In October, when Daniels cancelled the 10-year IBM deal, he called the error-prone system "a failed concept."

The same month, a U.S. District Court judge in Northern Indiana ordered the agency to speed up decisions on food stamp applications within a year. That lag, under the IBM team, also had brought pressure on the FSSA from federal food stamp officials. * * *

The FSSA has changed one practice at issue in the court cases, restoring face-to-face Medicaid appeal hearings in the 59 counties that were "modernized" under the IBM-overseen system.

Gavin Rose, an ACLU attorney, pointed out that hearings by phone made little sense when administrative law judges were tasked with evaluating a denied applicant's disability. But an applicant had to request one.

[Updated at 11:45 AM] The ILB has now received copies of all three decisions.

This ILB entry from March 25th was on the Chadwell (cap on in-home care) decision - and here is a copy of Clay County Superior Court Judge J. Blaine Akers' March 8, 2010, 39-page opinion.

Here is Terrell (telephonic hearings) and here is Perdue (benefit denials) - both issued March 1, 2010 by Marion County Superior Court Judge David J. Dreyer.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 1, 2010 09:48 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts | Indiana Government