WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Medicaid beneficiaries in Kansas infected with Hepatitis C will be able to receive the treatment they need regardless of how far their disease has progressed, according to a settlement.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree on Monday signed the agreement in a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas on behalf of enrollees in the privatized Medicaid program, also known as KanCare. The lawsuit filed last year challenged a Kansas policy that restricted the expensive treatment using direct-acting antiviral drugs to only the sickest Medicaid beneficiaries.
Without this treatment, a patients liver damage grows more severe and the risk of complications from the disease increases, depriving them of a cure, the ACLU had argued in its complaint.