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Landmark Class Action Settlement (Consent Decree) for Medicaid Eligible Children who have a Mental Health or Behavioral Disorder

On January 16, 2018, a Class Action Settlement (Consent Decree) was entered in Federal Court in Chicago, Illinois. N.B. v. Norwood, Case No. 11-6866. All persons who are under the age of 21 and are Medicaid eligible in the State of Illinois, who have been diagnosed with a mental health or behavioral disorder and who have received a recommendation for intensive home or community base services to address their disorders, are entitled under the Court Settlement to receive these home or community base services. This Settlement will provide needed community base services to these persons who have either a developmental disability disorder or a mental health disorder or both disorders.

This Settlement will impact 20,000 to 40,000 children in the State of Illinois and will provide Hundreds of Millions of dollars in new intensive community base services.

The purpose of this Consent Decree is to design and implement a systemic approach through which Class Members will be provided with reasonable promptness the Medicaid-authorized, medically necessary intensive home- and community-based services, including residential services, that are needed to correct or ameliorate their mental health or behavior disorders. The design of this new system will not occur overnight. Within 90 days, the parties will agree on an Expert to assist and monitor the “Implementation Plan” and Consent Decree. Within 9 months, the State will provide Class Counsel and the Expert with a draft Implementation Plan. This Implementation Plan will be finalized prior to January 2019. The parties have worked out an informal interim process to provide residential care to those Class members who have been repeatedly hospitalized due to their conditions.

READ the Settlement Agreement/Consent Decree

For further information regarding this Class Action Settlement (N.B. v. Norwood), you can contact Attorney Robert H. Farley, Jr. via his email at farleylaw@aol.com or call him at his office at 630-369-0103.