Georgia Officials Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Failure to Provide Children Necessary Mental Health Services

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Three Georgia officials face a proposed class action that alleges their respective state agencies systemically fail to provide Medicaid-eligible children who have significant mental health needs with the necessary services they are entitled to under federal law.

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The 75-page lawsuit, alleging an “acknowledged and ongoing crisis” in Georgia’s children’s mental health system, claims Russel Carlson, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH), has violated the Medicaid Act by failing to adequately provide three mandatory services—namely, intensive care coordination, intensive in-home services and mobile crisis response services—to program-eligible children in need of care.

These remedial services are intensive, home- and community-based interventions considered by medical professionals as clinically effective and more cost-effective than psychiatric institutional placements, the case explains. Nevertheless, the suit says, Georgia relies “heavily” on the use of inpatient units, psychiatric residential treatment facilities, crisis stabilization units and congregate childcare institutions in its administration of children’s mental health services. 

“Illustratively, between 2019 and 2023, over 12,000 Medicaid-enrolled children in Georgia were admitted into Psychiatric Institutions, often multiple times within the same year,” the filing shares.

Without access to these crucial remedial services, children with serious emotional disturbance—i.e., children that experience functional limitations due to a diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder—likely experience a deterioration in their mental health conditions, “repeated, prolonged, and unnecessary” institutionalization, and other harmful forms of out-of-home placement, the filing says.

“The failure to provide the Remedial Services to children with significant mental health needs when and where they need them also results in damaging disruptions to their participation in family and community life, such as school, sports, hobbies, and community programs and activities,” the case says.

The lawsuit—which also names as defendants Kevin Tanner, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD), and Candice Broce, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services and the director of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS)—argues that the unnecessary segregation of children with complex mental health conditions violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Under the ADA, state agencies are required to administer services “in the most integrated setting” appropriate to the child’s needs to prevent discrimination based on disability, the suit relays.

“Notwithstanding DCH’s, DBHDD’s, and DFCS’s separate and collective responsibility for the administration of Georgia’s children’s mental health system, this system lacks the oversight, accountability, and interagency coordination necessary to ensure that the Children receive the mental health services they need, including the Remedial Services, in the most integrated setting,” the filing claims.

The lawsuit looks to represent any Medicaid-eligible children under the age of 21 residing in Georgia with serious emotional disturbance for whom the remedial services mentioned above have not been provided and who (a) were admitted to a psychiatric institution to obtain mental health care within the past year or (b) visited a hospital emergency room seeking mental health care at least twice within the last year or within any span of 12 months thereafter.

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