Lawyers say Minnesotans with disabilities are paying the price in fraud response
An exhibit traveling to three law schools in 2026 looks at the history of disability rights in Minnesota.
Courtesy of the University of St. Thomas School of Law
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Audio transcript
NINA MOINI: Several parts of state government are working to root out fraud from state programs. Minnesota lawmakers are considering bills to step up oversight. The Department of Human Services is reviewing payments to 14 Medicaid programs for possible fraud. It's delayed or suspended payments to some providers. Advocates for disability rights say people who rely on these programs are caught in the middle.
Here's one report shared by Lisa Harrison-Hadler to the State Senate Human Services Committee this week. She leads a state office that receives and investigates concerns from people receiving mental health and disability care.
LISA HARRISON-HADLER: We've had a hospital social worker, social workers reach out to our office inquiring about a client whose provider is experiencing a DHS payment withhold and a credible allegation of fraud situation. The hospital says the provider got the notice and then immediately dropped the individual off at an emergency, citing that they were not given resources or a timeline of the investigation, and thus could not afford to continue delivering services without payment. And the client remained in the hospital absent any medical necessity while the case manager attempted to find another placement.
NINA MOINI: Harrison-Hadler and other presenters also mentioned cases where services that were paid for but were never provided where people abruptly lost services, including housing, after payments were suspended. Later today, a group of legal experts are getting together to talk about this issue in a panel discussion. It's titled "Disability Rights on Hold-- How the fraud allegations and funding freezes are affecting the disability community." It's the opening to an exhibit about disability rights in Minnesota that's traveling to three law schools this year as well.
University of St. Thomas law professor Elizabeth Schiltz is one of the organizers and a speaker on today's panel. She's on the line. Thanks for being with us, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Thank you for having us.
NINA MOINI: And another panelist is joining me, disability lawyer Shamus O'Meara. Thanks for being here as well, Shamus.
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Sure. Glad to be here.
NINA MOINI: Shamus, I'd love to start with you. What do you make of the report that we just heard, the story that was just mentioned by Lisa Harrison-Hadler?
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Well, it's pretty appalling to drop off a vulnerable citizen at a hospital with no continuity of care. I think everyone knows the State Department of Human Services is federally required to ensure continuity of care for people with disabilities. That's not happening. There's no due process. There's no hearing. There's no notice, and really, there's no help.
And so what's happening with these freezes is really simply a refusal to pay providers, and thereby depriving vulnerable citizens of critical care. And it's resulting in hundreds of individuals with disabilities being evicted from their homes without any safety net.
The Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities on the Monday hearing that you referenced before the Department of the Human Services Committee advised that four individuals with disabilities have died. If this continues, we expect more vulnerable citizens to die and that's obviously a very dangerous situation.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And we are working on uncovering more reporting on those instances. Elizabeth, what about fraud in the state's efforts to reckon with fraud is impacting people's rights with disabilities? We're hearing these stories. But from a legal perspective, what is this meaning?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Sure. Well, people with disabilities have been fighting for centuries for basic civil rights, and eventually they won through series of hard-fought struggles the legal right to live to the extent possible in the community and receive their services that they need to support such independent living from the government. And this is funded through a Medicaid program that's jointly funded by the federal and the state governments.
And what's happening is that in response to the allegations of fraud, both the federal and the state governments are taking broad scale, undifferentiated actions just to freeze funding, eliminate services for people with disabilities, without consulting with people with disabilities at all and without thinking about possibly more differentiated ways to attack the fraud rather than just freezing the services.
NINA MOINI: And one avenue the state seems to be exploring is really getting tough on the practice of subsidizing rent. Shamus, can you talk about what legal options are available to people in this situation? Talking about the program integrated community services, which allows people with disabilities to receive services in their home, and then in some cases, providers are also subsidizing the rent. And so state employees lawyers are saying that that's resulted in people being threatened with evictions. What do you make of this legal ordeal?
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Well, the integrated community supports has been a great program and a safety net and something that gravitates toward individual choice. And the US Supreme Court's decision in 1999, it's the Olmstead decision that says that people with disabilities need to be supported in the most integrated setting in accordance with their choice. There's federal and state law that backs that up.
And so as an advocate for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, I think it's been a great program and it needs to be sustained. But you just can't blanket shut off funding because the result is going to be evictions, homelessness. And then families might try to take care of their loved one, but if they can't, if they need critical care, it's back into a hospital setting or a nursing home. And we don't want to go back 50 or 70 years to institutionalization of people with disabilities. Nobody wants that.
And so this approach by the state, which, by the way, hasn't lost a dime of federal money as far as I understand, there's been a threat to cut off $2 billion in Medicaid funding, but the state hasn't been cut off. What the state has done is cut off the funding to providers and the providers are going bankrupt, or they're trying to make ends meet with 30-day emergency funds or bridge loans and we expect more of those providers to close their doors.
And the result is going to be hundreds and thousands of people with disabilities who have relied on those providers and don't have any continuity of care or are going to end up without a home and in an institutionalized setting, which is regrettable and appalling and dangerous.
NINA MOINI: Elizabeth, are there policy changes you think would lead to these programs working better for the people they are intended to serve?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Well, that's going to be a difficult question to answer. But the first step in answering that question is some consultation with the people who are directly affected with the service providers and with the people with disabilities. There have to be more refined ways of dealing with fraudulent actors than just wholesale elimination of funding for all of the programs that fit within certain kinds of buckets of people with disabilities getting these services.
NINA MOINI: Is there legal recourse at all, or are you hearing about lawsuits being filed if people's rights are being violated to ensure that they are able to get that funding?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Yeah, I think that I'll pass that one over to Shamus because he's one of the people who does these kinds of lawsuits.
NINA MOINI: What are the legal options, Shamus?
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Well, providers are suing in state court for earned revenue that has been paid and trying to extract those monies from the state under this freeze. Individuals with disabilities have claims for violations of civil rights, for violation of the integration mandate under the Americans with Disabilities Act, under the Social Security Act, under the Medicaid statutes, there's a number of things. There's just a deprivation of due process.
And really the state is ignoring fundamental constitutional protections that are in place for people with disabilities and that have been hard fought over many, many years, including class-action lawsuits where we were part of that forced the state to agree to institute an Olmstead plan to support people with disabilities in the most integrated setting according to their choices and their dreams.
And it has been working pretty well. There's been some bumps in the road, but this kind of conduct where you simply shut off millions of dollars in funding is-- I mean, this is a new ground to tread. It's really inviting another class-action lawsuit on behalf of the individuals who are going to lose their homes and end up in a situation where they're going to be forced into a nursing home or a hospital setting. Really nobody wants that. I assume the state doesn't want that. And so there has to be some discussion now about what's going on because this is going to get worse before it gets better.
NINA MOINI: Elizabeth, before I have to let you both go, I did mention that you're organizing this panel discussion in this traveling exhibit about legal rights of people with disabilities in Minnesota. Can you tell us more about what you have planned, what people can learn from these exhibits?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Sure. This exhibit is fantastic. It's a roving museum on the history of the fight for disability rights in Minnesota. And it was put together, starting in 1923 by a group of people under the leadership of Colleen Wieck from the governor's council on disabilities and Magistrate Judge Becky Thorson, primarily.
But it's something that was sponsored by the Federal Court of Minnesota and it is a fantastic telling of the whole history of the struggle for the civil rights of people with disabilities. It's in the form of 20 movable banners. Right now, the banners are in the atrium of the St. Thomas Law School and they'll be here for the rest of the week.
Then they're going to be moving to areas of the University of Minnesota Law School and they'll be there for the whole month of March. And then after that, they're going to be moving to Mitchell Hamline. Any organization that really wants to take these banners and use them as a backdrop or educational system can contact the federal court and arrange to have these shown.
They were unveiled at a big CLE program in conjunction with an art display with art by people with disabilities in the federal courthouse in Minneapolis. They have been in the federal courthouses in Duluth and some of the other federal courthouses around the state as well.
NINA MOINI: So it's a visual representation of what it's taken to secure legal rights for people with disabilities and you're hoping that more people will put that on display. Thank you both so much. Thank you so much for coming by Minnesota Now. Please keep us posted on how things are developing throughout the legislative session. Appreciate your time.
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Thank you for having us.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. Elizabeth Schulz is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas, and Shamus O'Meara is a lawyer who specializes in disability rights.
Here's one report shared by Lisa Harrison-Hadler to the State Senate Human Services Committee this week. She leads a state office that receives and investigates concerns from people receiving mental health and disability care.
LISA HARRISON-HADLER: We've had a hospital social worker, social workers reach out to our office inquiring about a client whose provider is experiencing a DHS payment withhold and a credible allegation of fraud situation. The hospital says the provider got the notice and then immediately dropped the individual off at an emergency, citing that they were not given resources or a timeline of the investigation, and thus could not afford to continue delivering services without payment. And the client remained in the hospital absent any medical necessity while the case manager attempted to find another placement.
NINA MOINI: Harrison-Hadler and other presenters also mentioned cases where services that were paid for but were never provided where people abruptly lost services, including housing, after payments were suspended. Later today, a group of legal experts are getting together to talk about this issue in a panel discussion. It's titled "Disability Rights on Hold-- How the fraud allegations and funding freezes are affecting the disability community." It's the opening to an exhibit about disability rights in Minnesota that's traveling to three law schools this year as well.
University of St. Thomas law professor Elizabeth Schiltz is one of the organizers and a speaker on today's panel. She's on the line. Thanks for being with us, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Thank you for having us.
NINA MOINI: And another panelist is joining me, disability lawyer Shamus O'Meara. Thanks for being here as well, Shamus.
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Sure. Glad to be here.
NINA MOINI: Shamus, I'd love to start with you. What do you make of the report that we just heard, the story that was just mentioned by Lisa Harrison-Hadler?
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Well, it's pretty appalling to drop off a vulnerable citizen at a hospital with no continuity of care. I think everyone knows the State Department of Human Services is federally required to ensure continuity of care for people with disabilities. That's not happening. There's no due process. There's no hearing. There's no notice, and really, there's no help.
And so what's happening with these freezes is really simply a refusal to pay providers, and thereby depriving vulnerable citizens of critical care. And it's resulting in hundreds of individuals with disabilities being evicted from their homes without any safety net.
The Ombudsman for Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities on the Monday hearing that you referenced before the Department of the Human Services Committee advised that four individuals with disabilities have died. If this continues, we expect more vulnerable citizens to die and that's obviously a very dangerous situation.
NINA MOINI: Yeah. And we are working on uncovering more reporting on those instances. Elizabeth, what about fraud in the state's efforts to reckon with fraud is impacting people's rights with disabilities? We're hearing these stories. But from a legal perspective, what is this meaning?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Sure. Well, people with disabilities have been fighting for centuries for basic civil rights, and eventually they won through series of hard-fought struggles the legal right to live to the extent possible in the community and receive their services that they need to support such independent living from the government. And this is funded through a Medicaid program that's jointly funded by the federal and the state governments.
And what's happening is that in response to the allegations of fraud, both the federal and the state governments are taking broad scale, undifferentiated actions just to freeze funding, eliminate services for people with disabilities, without consulting with people with disabilities at all and without thinking about possibly more differentiated ways to attack the fraud rather than just freezing the services.
NINA MOINI: And one avenue the state seems to be exploring is really getting tough on the practice of subsidizing rent. Shamus, can you talk about what legal options are available to people in this situation? Talking about the program integrated community services, which allows people with disabilities to receive services in their home, and then in some cases, providers are also subsidizing the rent. And so state employees lawyers are saying that that's resulted in people being threatened with evictions. What do you make of this legal ordeal?
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Well, the integrated community supports has been a great program and a safety net and something that gravitates toward individual choice. And the US Supreme Court's decision in 1999, it's the Olmstead decision that says that people with disabilities need to be supported in the most integrated setting in accordance with their choice. There's federal and state law that backs that up.
And so as an advocate for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, I think it's been a great program and it needs to be sustained. But you just can't blanket shut off funding because the result is going to be evictions, homelessness. And then families might try to take care of their loved one, but if they can't, if they need critical care, it's back into a hospital setting or a nursing home. And we don't want to go back 50 or 70 years to institutionalization of people with disabilities. Nobody wants that.
And so this approach by the state, which, by the way, hasn't lost a dime of federal money as far as I understand, there's been a threat to cut off $2 billion in Medicaid funding, but the state hasn't been cut off. What the state has done is cut off the funding to providers and the providers are going bankrupt, or they're trying to make ends meet with 30-day emergency funds or bridge loans and we expect more of those providers to close their doors.
And the result is going to be hundreds and thousands of people with disabilities who have relied on those providers and don't have any continuity of care or are going to end up without a home and in an institutionalized setting, which is regrettable and appalling and dangerous.
NINA MOINI: Elizabeth, are there policy changes you think would lead to these programs working better for the people they are intended to serve?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Well, that's going to be a difficult question to answer. But the first step in answering that question is some consultation with the people who are directly affected with the service providers and with the people with disabilities. There have to be more refined ways of dealing with fraudulent actors than just wholesale elimination of funding for all of the programs that fit within certain kinds of buckets of people with disabilities getting these services.
NINA MOINI: Is there legal recourse at all, or are you hearing about lawsuits being filed if people's rights are being violated to ensure that they are able to get that funding?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Yeah, I think that I'll pass that one over to Shamus because he's one of the people who does these kinds of lawsuits.
NINA MOINI: What are the legal options, Shamus?
SHAMUS O'MEARA: Well, providers are suing in state court for earned revenue that has been paid and trying to extract those monies from the state under this freeze. Individuals with disabilities have claims for violations of civil rights, for violation of the integration mandate under the Americans with Disabilities Act, under the Social Security Act, under the Medicaid statutes, there's a number of things. There's just a deprivation of due process.
And really the state is ignoring fundamental constitutional protections that are in place for people with disabilities and that have been hard fought over many, many years, including class-action lawsuits where we were part of that forced the state to agree to institute an Olmstead plan to support people with disabilities in the most integrated setting according to their choices and their dreams.
And it has been working pretty well. There's been some bumps in the road, but this kind of conduct where you simply shut off millions of dollars in funding is-- I mean, this is a new ground to tread. It's really inviting another class-action lawsuit on behalf of the individuals who are going to lose their homes and end up in a situation where they're going to be forced into a nursing home or a hospital setting. Really nobody wants that. I assume the state doesn't want that. And so there has to be some discussion now about what's going on because this is going to get worse before it gets better.
NINA MOINI: Elizabeth, before I have to let you both go, I did mention that you're organizing this panel discussion in this traveling exhibit about legal rights of people with disabilities in Minnesota. Can you tell us more about what you have planned, what people can learn from these exhibits?
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Sure. This exhibit is fantastic. It's a roving museum on the history of the fight for disability rights in Minnesota. And it was put together, starting in 1923 by a group of people under the leadership of Colleen Wieck from the governor's council on disabilities and Magistrate Judge Becky Thorson, primarily.
But it's something that was sponsored by the Federal Court of Minnesota and it is a fantastic telling of the whole history of the struggle for the civil rights of people with disabilities. It's in the form of 20 movable banners. Right now, the banners are in the atrium of the St. Thomas Law School and they'll be here for the rest of the week.
Then they're going to be moving to areas of the University of Minnesota Law School and they'll be there for the whole month of March. And then after that, they're going to be moving to Mitchell Hamline. Any organization that really wants to take these banners and use them as a backdrop or educational system can contact the federal court and arrange to have these shown.
They were unveiled at a big CLE program in conjunction with an art display with art by people with disabilities in the federal courthouse in Minneapolis. They have been in the federal courthouses in Duluth and some of the other federal courthouses around the state as well.
NINA MOINI: So it's a visual representation of what it's taken to secure legal rights for people with disabilities and you're hoping that more people will put that on display. Thank you both so much. Thank you so much for coming by Minnesota Now. Please keep us posted on how things are developing throughout the legislative session. Appreciate your time.
ELIZABETH SCHILTZ: Thank you for having us.
NINA MOINI: Thank you. Elizabeth Schulz is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas, and Shamus O'Meara is a lawyer who specializes in disability rights.
Download transcript (PDF)
Transcription services provided by 3Play Media.
