Arkansas can't reduce a Helena-West Helena woman's Medicaid benefits until it issues an adequate notice explaining why it plans to do so, a federal judge ruled Friday.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. came after a three-day trial in the Phillips County city over a lawsuit by Jonesboro-based Legal Aid of Arkansas on behalf of 90-year-old Ethel Jacobs, who has Alzheimer's disease.
The lawsuit contends that the state Department of Human Services' use of an assessment tool known as the ArPath has resulted in arbitrary reductions and terminations of home-based Medicaid services for the elderly and disabled.
The department has used the tool since 2013 to determine recipients' eligibility for home-based services, and since January to determine the number of hours of service a recipient can receive.
Through early May, about 47 percent of the 2,600 Medicaid recipients who had been assessed had their hours reduced, according to a court filing by Jacobs' attorney, Kevin De Liban.
Forty-four percent had their hours increased, and the hours for 9 percent didn't change.
De Liban said Marshall ruled Friday that the notice Jacobs received in February didn't contain enough information about how her assessment led to her eligibility for home-based services being reduced from 45 hours per week to 35 hours per week.
A professor with the University of Michigan also testified that a computer program used by the Human Services Department had erred in how it classified Jacobs using the assessment results, De Liban said.
If the classification system had been correctly applied, Jacobs would have continued to be eligible for about 45 hours per week of services, he said.
Marshall found that the lack of information in the notices violated Jacobs' right to due process under the U.S. Constitution and federal Medicaid law and ordered the department to issue a notice containing more information, De Liban said.
Human Services Department spokesman Amy Webb said the department "will look at all options moving forward" in deciding how to respond to the ruling.
Metro on 10/29/2016