New York Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Reverse Cdpap Changes

New York lawmakers are looking to reverse the decision that requires the state’s self-directed Medicaid home care program — the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) — to operate under a single fiscal intermediary.

Last week, State Senate Health Committee Chair Gustavo Rivera and Assembly Health Committee Chair Amy Paulin introduced legislation that aims to address some of the challenges that have come up since Public Partnerships LLC (PPL) took over as the sole fiscal intermediary in April.

Specifically, the legislation would allow for the creation of more fiscal intermediaries, giving CDPAP consumers more options. This new cohort of fiscal intermediaries would be required to contract with the New York State Department of Health.

“One month after the transition occurred, 99,000 workers had not received a single paycheck and saw their health benefits basically erased while countless of disabled and older New Yorkers have been left without care,” Rivera told Home Health Care News in an email. “People are hitting a breaking point — we’ve even heard of workers who are planning on sleeping in their cars because they cannot pay their rent. We must hold this administration accountable for their irresponsible actions that caused so much harm to both workers and patients.”

PPL has insisted that it is paying caregivers on time. In a recent statement, PPL reported that it paid over 99% of registered personal assistants who submitted a timesheet by the deadline for its most recent pay period.

“Special interest groups associated with a very small subset of the CDPAP community have recently issued informal surveys that vastly misrepresent the status of the CDPAP transition,” the statement read. “The number of respondents to these surveys account for 0.2% of the CDPAP population and survey questions are heavily biased. In fact, the surveys are both unsound statistically and have leading questions, meant to unduly influence the responses.”

State lawmakers aren’t the only ones taking aim at CDPAP.

Last week, New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) and law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP filed a pre-motion letter asking for additional court intervention. The pre-motion letter is the most recent step in a class action lawsuit filed in March on behalf of CDPAP consumers.

In April, a senior U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York signed a preliminary injunction that gave CDPAP consumers until May 15 to enroll with PPL, and personal assistants until June 6. This made it possible for some CDPAP consumers to keep their caregivers compensated through a prior fiscal intermediary until they could register with PPL.

“Our team is hearing daily from CDPAP consumers across the state who are still unable to register with PPL, whose personal assistants are still unable to register with PPL, and whose personal assistants are not able to clock time or be paid correctly,” Elizabeth Jois, supervising attorney in NYLAG’s special litigation unit, said on Friday in a statement. “What is crystal clear to everyone in the CDPAP community is that the transition to PPL has been chaotic, and has resulted in far too many CDPAP consumers losing services. These failures continue to jeopardize the safety of disabled New Yorkers who rely on the CDPAP program, while forcing home care workers into prolonged financial insecurity.”

In this latest filing, plaintiffs asked the court to extend the deadline to Aug. 15.

“The bottom line is that CDPAP participants need more time, as well as drastic, immediate improvements in the level of support being provided to ensure consumers’ care is not further disrupted,” Jois said.

The post New York Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Reverse CDPAP Changes appeared first on Home Health Care News.