The federal court in the K.W. v. Armstrong lawsuit has once again ruled that Idaho Medicaid cannot keep secrets from people who use Medicaid. Idaho Medicaid wants to ban adults with developmental disabilities and their advocates from seeing how the SIS-A works. The SIS-A is the new “Supports Intensity Scale – Adult” assessment tool that Medicaid wanted to use to pick people’s budgets. Idaho Medicaid asked the judge to let it use the SIS-A without letting adults and their advocates see the SIS manual that explains how the tool works.

The judge said that keeping the manual a secret would be unconstitutional. The court ruled against Medicaid’s plan to make budget decisions with the SIS while hiding the SIS manual. The court said that the plan “defies logic and is antithetical to principles of due process.” You can read the whole court decision here.

But Idaho Medicaid is dead-set on keeping the manual a secret. It is now trying to appeal the court’s decision. The appeal process could take a long time to sort out.

The K.W. v. Armstrong lawyers will hold two online meetings to explain the decision. We also want to get your feedback about what should happen next. These meetings are just for people who get Medicaid DD services in Idaho, and their primary advocate. The meetings will not be recorded. Both meetings will cover the same update – you only need to attend one of them:

Daytime meeting
Monday, October 23, 2023
1:00 pm MT / 12:00 noon PT
Register for the daytime meeting

Evening meeting
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
6:00 pm MT / 5:00 pm PT
Register for the evening meeting

Have questions? Let us know!