Health Care

The Healthcare Team

Many people with disabilities and their family members encounter difficulties in proving eligibility for important public healthcare programs such as the Arizona Long Term Care System (ALTCS). Once eligibility is met, people often are denied medically necessary services, face inadequate networks of providers, or encounter disability discrimination.

DRAZ helps people with disabilities navigate legal barriers to appropriate and accessible healthcare. DRAZ focuses on addressing decisions denying eligibility based on program eligibility requirements, failure to provide medically necessary healthcare services, and delays in services due to insufficient providers for Medicaid (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System – AHCCCS) and Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) members. DRAZ also addresses disability discrimination in healthcare, such as physical barriers and denial of sign language interpreters or alternative formats of written information. 

DRAZ’s Health Care Team addresses the rights of people with disabilities to have full and equal access to healthcare services for which they are eligible and meet medical necessity. The Health Care Team advocates for people with disabilities in a variety of ways, such as providing legal information and advice, direct client services, outreach, and training in the community on rights related to health care. Here are some examples of when the Health Care Team may provide direct services to people with disabilities:

• A healthcare office does not have an accessible examination table for a person in a wheelchair.
• An individual with an Intellectual/Developmental Disability has been denied eligibility by DDD despite being eligible in another state.
• A child with a medical condition requiring surgery is denied the surgery by their AHCCCS health plan.
• A parent of a child with a mobility disability can no longer do unaided physical transfers and has been denied a lift for the home.
• An individual is dropped from physical therapy services because of missed appointments, but the missed appointments happened because the non-emergency transportation did not come as scheduled.  
• A therapist refuses to provide a sign language interpreter for occupational therapy appointments.
• An individual has been approved for 12 hours/week of nursing care but there are no providers that can fulfill the hours.