Suit Settlement Requires Pennsylvania to Provide Faster Access to Psychological Services
A federal judge on Feb. 28 approved a settlement of a class-action lawsuit that will require Pennsylvania welfare officials to provide psychological services to "troubled young people" within 60 days of such requests, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The Disabilities Law Project filed suit against the state welfare office in 1999, contending that the state's medical assistance managed care program for low-income individuals, HealthChoices, had so few providers of mental health care and was so slow at delivering services that it violated "reasonable promptness" provisions in the Social Security Act. The suits alleged that some HealthChoices clients waited up to two years to receive care. "This settlement is not a panacea, but it is a good-faith effort to provide faster and better services," U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter wrote in his order, adding that the 60-day limit "represents substantial improvement over prelawsuit experiences." In addition to the 60-day limit on waiting for services, the settlement establishes record keeping mandates and requires training and broader qualification standards to increase the number of home therapists participating in HealthChoices (Slobodzian, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/2).
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