CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Three New Hampshire residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against Health and Human Services Commissioner John Stephen in federal court, saying his department failed to make timely decisions to provide them Medicaid disability benefits.

The department is supposed to make decisions about a person’s eligibility for disabilities benefits within 90 days, the suit said. The three residents have waited, respectively, 273 days, 188 days and 170 days for a decision from DHHS on their initial applications, the suit said.

“The ultimate goal of this class-action lawsuit is to ensure that DHHS will make more timely decisions about benefits for disabled residents of our state so that much of the pain and difficulty they are currently experiencing is decreased,” Ben Mortell, an attorney with New Hampshire Legal Assistance who is representing the residents, said in a statement Thursday. “A timely decision will allow people to receive necessary medical treatment and enable them to meet their basic needs, so that they can continue to live their lives with dignity,” he said.

The department hasn’t received a copy of the lawsuit yet, so it hasn’t had the chance to review it and therefore can’t comment on it, said Mary Castelli, senior division director at DHHS. “We will be working closely and coordinating with the attorney general’s office and responding to it,” she said.

Castelli said “a very complex eligibility review process is involved” in determining aid for the totally and permanently disabled. “You do have to carefully review medical information in order to make appropriate decisions about whether a person is disabled under the guidelines of the program.”

The Disabilities Rights Center also is representing the plaintiffs.