Healthcare Access


About DREDF’s Healthcare Work

Close-up of the wheel of a wheelchair and wheelchair user's hand.

People with disabilities experience a range of physical, programmatic and systemic barriers when they try to access healthcare. We work out ways to apply existing laws and principles of disability non-discrimination in the complicated context of how health care services are delivered in this country.

Highlights

As part of a four-part report series of papers by the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), the Movement Advancement Project, Race Forward, DREDF, and Justice in Aging – Risks and Rewards of Demographic Data Collection: How Effective Data Privacy Can Promote Health Equity – discuss ways that health care entities can mitigate these legitimate concerns while employing demographic data in its highest and best use. Silvia Yee and Mary Lou Breslin co-authored This Data Not That Data: Big Data, Privacy, and the Impact on People with Disabilities (PDF). March 2023

DREDF authored this position statement, Disability Bias in Clinical Algorithms: Recommendations for Healthcare Organizations (PDF). September 2022

In collaboration with Prof. Nancy Mudrick and graduate students Kyrian Nielsen and LeeAnn Swager, Mary Lou Breslin co-authored, Can Disability Accommodation Needs Stored in Electronic Health Records Help Providers Prepare for Patient Visits? A Qualitative Study (PDF). October 2020

In collaboration with the Community Living Policy Center, Mary Lou Breslin authored, Easy Does It: A Promising Model for Emergency Home and Community-Based Services (PDF). December 2019

In collaboration with Prof. Nancy Mudrick and graduate student, LeeAnn Swagger, Syracuse University, Mary Lou Breslin co-authored Presence of Accessible Equipment and Interior Elements in Primary Care Offices (PDF), published in Health Equity, Volume 3.1, 2019. August 2019

In collaboration with the Community Living Policy Center, Mary Lou Breslin co-presented on the topic of physical and programmatic accessibility in healthcare service delivery at a webinar entitled, Promising Practices in Managed Long-term Services and Supports: Network Adequacy and Accessibility. February 2019

In collaboration with Syracuse University, DREDF is assessing data on accessibility of primary care offices in California. Graduate student, LeeAnn Swagger, presented early outcomes at the American Public Health Association (APHA) conference in 2018 in a poster entitled, An Assessment of the Structural and Equipment Accessibility of Primary Care Offices (PDF). November 2018

DREDF Statement on Electronic Visit Verification. March 2018

The Community Living Policy Center releases Improving Support for Health Maintenance in Home and Community-Based Services: How States Adapt Nursing Rules for the Community First Choice Program, authored by Mary Lou Breslin. February 2018

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) releases seminal paper, Compounded Disparities: Health Equity at the Intersection of Disability, Race, and Ethnicity (PDF), authored by DREDF staff and colleagues. January 2018

The Community Living Policy Center releases Promoting Physical and Programmatic Accessibility in Managed Long-Term Services and Supports Programs (PDF), a new paper published in collaboration with DREDF. July 2017

DREDF releases new videos showing why Congress should not repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or cut Medicaid healthcare and home and community based–services. April 2017

DREDF releases two new Issue Briefs that highlight promising collaborations between aging and disability organizations, Medicaid managed care organizations, and heath and mental health care providers. The organizations involved in these collaborations are working to improve health for older adults and people with disabilities while also reducing emergency department visits, hospital admissions and re-hospitalizations. July 2016

ISSUE BRIEF (PDF): Care1st Health Plan and Access to Independence, San Diego County, California. Updated December 2016

ISSUE BRIEF (PDF): FREED Center for Independent Living, Grass Valley, California and the Area Agency on Aging, Sacramento, California. Updated December 2016

DREDF released The Case for Including Functional Limitation Measures in Electronic Health Records (PDF), an​ Issue Brief that supports including either the American Community Survey (ACS) set of six disability questions or other equivalent functional limitation measures in electronic health records. April 2016

DREDF comments on HHS Office for Civil Rights proposed anti-discrimination rules under the Affordable Care Act November 2015