Did Acting Director Nash Sign a Contract with a Major Error?

Something very strange just happened at DODD.

On November 24, 2025, Acting DODD Director Lyndsay Nash signed a contract with a company called interRAI to buy new assessment tests. DODD says these tests will be mandatory for 44,724 Ohioans with IO, Level 1, and SELF waivers, and that all test data will be sent to an international research network to be used in studies around the world.

This alone raises a serious issue, because Ohio law gives people with developmental disabilities the right to refuse to participate in research.

But the contract has an even bigger problem.

The contract says Ohio is buying two tests: one for children with developmental disabilities (DD) and one for adults with DD. However, later in the contract, Ohio promises to send interRAI research data from a third test, a psychiatric mental health test with extremely personal questions about kids, their siblings, and their parents. The contract includes a 15-page list of all the data Ohio promises to collect using this psychiatric test.

This raises a simple but alarming question:

What exactly did Acting Director Nash agree to when she signed this contract?

• Will children on DD waivers now be required to take two tests — the DD test and a separate psychiatric mental health test?

  
  

• Or did Acting Director Nash sign a major research contract that contains a serious mistake?

  
  

This matters because the contract requires sending test results to a foreign research network, and there is no option for Ohioans to refuse.

We contacted Acting Director Nash to clarify, but we did not hear back yet.

We contacted interRAI (the research company), and they responded right away with instructions to ask DODD’s Allan Showalter what happened.

We then contacted Allan Showalter, but we have not heard back.

So at this moment, we do not know whether Ohio children will be required to take the psychiatric test or whether Acting Director Nash signed a contract that was incorrect.

Acting Director Nash is an attorney, which makes this even more confusing.

Bottom line

Ohioans with developmental disabilities deserve to know what tests they will be required to take and what research their data will be used in, especially when these tests are required in order to receive Medicaid waiver services.

Ohioans also deserve leaders who carefully review contracts before signing them, especially contracts that affect more than 44,000 people.

We will post updates below as they come in. If you want to receive updates by email, please scroll to the bottom and sign up for email alerts.

Updates:

We have no new information as of Friday, November 28, 2025.