For Cleveland mom Kasey Sheets, the staircase inside her home has turned into a battleground. She says county and state officials have refused to cover a stair lift for her 15-year-old son Finn, who has severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and needs round-the-clock care, leaving him cut off from the family’s finished basement.
Sheets estimates the stair lift would run about $8,000. After two appeals were denied, she says her family is now stuck juggling storm prep, everyday safety, and the logistics of moving a medically fragile teenager up and down the stairs without the equipment his doctors say he needs. She told reporters it feels like being forced to choose between her children when, in her view, the family should be able to use every room in their own house.
As reported by News 5 Cleveland, Finn needed advanced life support known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation after a bout of COVID-19 and pneumonia in 2023. Since then, he has required oxygen and respiratory therapies several times a day. Sheets told the station she once carried Finn down the stairs during a severe storm in 2024 and was terrified she would not be able to get him back up. She and her husband have already appealed the state and county denials twice, most recently getting a rejection in early June. To draw attention to the case, the family posted a social video featuring an AI-generated voice saying, "I need to live."
County Program Lists Stair Glides, With Caveats
The Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities’ Family Supports Program guidelines say the county can pay for certain home modifications for eligible families, including examples such as ramps and stair glides. At the same time, Cuyahoga DD notes that the Family Supports Program will not fund items that could be paid for by Medicaid or another insurance program. Projects also must go through an evaluation, competitive bidding, and final approval by the board’s home-modification coordinator.
What The State Rulebook Says
The Ohio Administrative Code sets the ground rules for Medicaid home-modification requests and directs the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) to sign off on the lowest-cost option that still meets a person’s assessed needs. The regulation also caps how much can be spent on home modifications for an individual in a calendar year. ODM or its designee can require an in-home evaluation to decide whether the requested work is both clinically appropriate and the least expensive way to meet those needs. Ohio Admin. Code 5160-44-13 lays out those standards and the authorization process in detail.
How Families Can Challenge A Denial
According to Disability Rights Ohio, when an agency such as ODM or a county board denies a service, families have the right to ask for an administrative state hearing through the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services’ Bureau of State Hearings. A request for a state hearing generally must be filed within 120 days of the denial. If a family wants benefits to continue while the appeal is being decided, that request typically must be made within 15 days. Disability Rights Ohio outlines the steps and contact options for starting that process.
Sheets told News 5 Cleveland that the repeated denials have effectively walled her family off from parts of their own home and that her younger children are scared. She has worked with medical providers and submitted supporting referrals for the stair lift, but says county and state reviewers concluded that giving Finn access to the basement would not change his overall quality of life.
Where Families Can Look For Help
Cuyahoga DD’s Family Supports guidelines list NEON (the North East Ohio Network) as the local administrator handling Family Supports Program requests, along with contact information for families who need help with equipment or home modifications. The document includes phone numbers and email addresses for Family Supports Coordinators and explains how referrals, evaluations, and approvals work for specialized equipment and home projects. Cuyahoga DD recommends that families begin with an occupational or physical therapist assessment to document medical necessity for any requested changes.
The dispute underscores a tension between rules aimed at avoiding duplicate payment for services and what families describe as basic safety concerns when a child cannot move freely and safely through the home. Sheets says she is not done fighting for a solution for Finn, and the outcome of ongoing appeals and administrative reviews will determine whether her family can use set-aside funds to install a stair lift and, in her view, make the entire house safer for everyone who lives there.
