Some disabled people who use New York State’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, will now be able to stick with the previous company who handled their workers' pay, for a brief time.
A preliminary injunction entered in federal court on Thursday means consumers will have until May 15 to switch their care over to the state’s new single fiscal intermediary. In CDPAP, consumers can hire, train and self-direct personal assistants that are paid using Medicaid dollars through a fiscal intermediary.
Consumers can also elect, in some cases, to have their workers paid by their previous FI until those workers are transferred over to PPL, if they haven't been yet. All workers will have to be transferred over to PPL by June 6.
In April 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul announced the state would move from over 600 fiscal intermediaries administering the program, to only one. The hope is that the switch will save the state money, improve regulation and oversight.
The State Department of Health, who is the defendant in the case, and Public Partnerships LLC, the new single FI, have been trying to switch over roughly 250,000 disabled New Yorkers and their care workers from over previous FIs since January. Originally, the state had set a deadline of April 1 for all disabled people and their workers to be transferred over.
“The overall attempt to have problems fixed all at the same time seems to have created a sort of, you know, an issue where people can't get timely resolution. And so we felt that the most useful thing we could do was try to give people more time," Elizabeth Jois, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said.
You can read more about what the preliminary injunction means for the transition by clicking here.
