Class Action Seeks to Halt Decision to Terminate Waivers for Certain Medicaid Services in Oklahoma

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A proposed class action has been filed on behalf of adults and seniors with disabilities in Oklahoma who received notices from the state’s Department of Human Services (DHS) informing them that waiver services for Medicaid ADvantage and Medicaid In-Home Supports will be terminated on December 1, 2017. The 34-page complaint says the defendants—Ed Lake, director of Oklahoma’s DHS, along with Becky Pasternik-Ikard, the CEO of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority—have put proposed class members—possibly 10,000 individuals, the lawsuit estimates—at serious risk of institutionalization as a result of the “arbitrary decision to terminate waiver services solely for economic reasons.”

Filed by five individuals, three of whom serve as legal guardians, the lawsuit explains Oklahoma residents who receive the ADvantage waiver are either “frail elderly persons” or adults over 21 years old who have a physical disability. ADvantage participants require a nursing home-level of care, the case says, and are able to remain in a community-based living setting, rather than an institutional setting, through the program. Similarly, the In-Home Supports waiver provides nutrition, nursing, physical and therapeutic care services to individuals over 18 years old with developmental disabilities. 

The plaintiffs allege the defendants’ decision to eliminate the aforementioned Medicaid waivers amounts to discrimination on the basis of disability. Moreover, the case asserts the defendants are subjecting ADvantage and In-Home Supports recipients to an unnecessary risk of institutionalization by:

The complaint cites potential violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as well as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.