Disabilities

The state appealed a federal judge's ruling about whether it was improperly institutionalizing children who often require 24/7 care and have needs such as ventilators, feeding tubes and breathing tubes.

In the wake of an investigation by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group, the SSA acting commissioner said a special team will review “overpayment policies and procedures” and report directly back to her.

Lawmakers are faulting the SAA for issuing billions in payments that beneficiaries weren’t entitled to receive — and then demanding the money back — as reported by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group.

The long-running organization provides residential and other services for members of the disabled community.

Beneficiaries in five states described what happened when they received demands to return overpayments that reached up to tens of thousands of dollars or more.

The federal judge wrote that he is “not persuaded that Florida will suffer irreparable damage without a stay," but that noncompliance can bring substantial harm to institutionalized children.

The settlement puts the lawsuit on hold while AHCA moves forward with a rule-making process. Plaintiffs alleged that the state’s policy on incontinence supplies violated federal Medicaid law and the ADA.

A key part of the decision would require the state to increase the availability of private-duty nursing that could help children receive care outside of nursing homes. The state says complying is "impossible."

A civil rights lawsuit filed by the Justice Department against regulators a decade ago has finally gone to trial, and the judge looks set to remove 140 children from nursing homes in Broward and Pinellas.

With little or no income, disability applicants are seeking Social Security early retirement benefits even though it could cost them tens of thousands of dollars in future income, lawyers say.

The bill comes after long-running concerns about people with developmental disabilities being stuck on a waiting list for services.

A judge grants a request to handle the case as a class action. The claimants say the state stops providing incontinence supplies to Medicaid beneficiaries older than 21.