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.
The federal lawsuit filed in Kansas is among several nationwide demanding state Medicaid programs cover the costly, direct-acting antiviral drugs that have a 90 percent cure rate.
Hepatitis C is a viral infection that attacks the liver and can turn into a chronic disease. Its spread when the blood of an infected person enters the body of an uninfected person, such as with the sharing of needles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
