Staff Attorney at Disability Rights Iowa and Mid-Iowa Health Foundation HealthConnect Fellow
(April 2022-September 2023)
Ensuring children have access to consistent, reliable Medicaid services
As a staff attorney focused on Medicaid advocacy, Ehlers saw how many families with children who have disabilities struggle to access the resources that make their lives safer and provide more accessibility. Her fellowship campaign set out to create a Medical-Legal Partnership with a local health care institution that would formalize a system of referrals for families needing legal support within a health care clinic.
After numerous meetings with directors and hospital leadership, Ehlers identified an opportunity to partner with a palliative care clinic that provided care to children with chronic, disabling conditions. While a draft memorandum of understanding came together quickly, the process stalled in legal review. Instead of being present onsite within the clinic multiple days a week, Ehlers focused on building relationships with health care professionals that could lead to more referral opportunities, while her organization and the health care system continued to address legal concerns from both parties.
Being more connected with the health care system allowed for other opportunities as well, including training the pediatric therapy team on how to help families appeal Medicaid prior authorizations that are denied as well as provide advocacy to their patients in need of services. Disability Rights Iowa also applied for grants to fund the Medical-Legal Partnership. While still in progress, the process has built a framework to implement the model when ready.
Ehlers continues to represent children who come from referrals within the health care clinic — all of which have so far led to them receiving the services they are entitled to. She also has helped empower providers to help their patients with the appeal process. Having a stronger relationship with providers has helped her be more effective in preventing the denial of medically necessary treatment.
On a system level, Ehlers has raised awareness of the Medical-Legal Partnership model throughout the state as she’s been invited to present to various groups. She also has demonstrated that a collaboration between a health care institution and legal aid organization can lead to broader changes that increase patients’ access to care and services. For example, after representing many children in appeals for speech generating devices from the same Medicaid Managed Care Organization (MCO) and winning, the MCO began to settle cases prior to hearing, and eventually, Ehlers stopped receiving referrals for speech device-related cases.
Ehlers’ role within Disability Rights Iowa also transitioned from Staff Attorney to a newly created position of Systems Change and Equity Attorney. She is now helping the organization shift to systems-based work that moves beyond advocacy for individual clients. Her goal is to help colleagues identify common issues among clients being served and then work to create system changes that have a longer-term impact for more people. Ehlers attributes the skills and confidence she gained through the fellowship to take on this newly created position.
