NY officials agree to delay $9B home care overhaul amid consumer complaints

New York state health officials have agreed to extend the timeline to overhaul a $9 billion home care program after insisting for months that the changeover was going smoothly and would be completed on schedule.

The agreement was reached Wednesday between the state and attorneys representing health care consumers with chronic illnesses and disabilities who said they were at risk of having their care disrupted if the state’s plan wasn’t delayed.

The more than 200,000 New Yorkers who hire personal caregivers through the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program initially had until April 1 to register with a company called PPL, which has been contracted by the state to take over the service from more than 600 existing operators.

Home care consumers now have until May 15 to register with PPL, while their caregivers have until June 6 to get onboarded with the company. PPL is responsible for paying personal assistants hired through the Medicaid-funded program, who typically help their clients with basic tasks such as eating, bathing and going to the bathroom.

Advocates for home care consumers and caregivers have said in recent weeks that registering with PPL has been more difficult and confusing than state officials made it out to be, and that many were struggling to complete the process. Some consumers say they worry their caregivers will leave if they can’t get paid.

As of April 9, about 32,000 home care consumers still had to complete the process of registering with PPL, and about 36,000 workers in the program still weren’t able to log their hours with the company, according to the state health department.

A group of home care consumers, represented by the nonprofit New York Legal Assistance Group, sued the state Department of Health on March 26 to delay the overhaul. The judge in the case ordered state officials to negotiate with the organization over a new transition plan, which resulted in the parties reaching an agreement on an extension Wednesday evening.

Under the new agreement, personal assistants who are not yet set up to get paid by PPL can either go through an “expedited” onboarding process or get paid by the company with which they were previously working.

From the start, advocates raised concerns that the three months initially allotted for PPL to take over the massive home care program was insufficient. Critics of the plan, including companies getting pushed out of the program, have also slammed the state’s choice of PPL to run it.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald have attempted to combat the criticisms in recent months, while rejecting requests from state lawmakers to create a contingency plan if the overhaul wasn’t completed on time.

In a public service announcement released in January, McDonald assured home care consumers that they would be able to keep their caregivers and told workers in the program it would become easier for them to get paid.

At the end of March, the health department enlisted state workers to help PPL with the beleaguered transition, according to the Times Union. The state also extended the deadline to register with PPL until the end of April. But advocates said that still wasn’t sufficient.

Queens resident Maggie Ornstein gets paid through the program to serve as a caregiver for her mother, who she says has needed help since she had a brain aneurysm years ago. She says the program enables her to make some much-needed extra income, since her caregiving duties only allow her to do other work part time.

Ornstein said in early April she still wasn’t sure if she and her mother’s other caregivers were properly registered with PPL and able to get paid. According to Ornstein, her online portal with the company said she still had documents to submit, even though she was sure she’d already submitted them.

She added that she has called PPL’s help line about a dozen times since February to make sure she and her mother were registered.

“ I’ve never been able to get a person on the phone,” Ornstein said.

The agreement doesn’t preclude the home care consumers who sued the state from seeking an additional extension on the transition plan. The agreement states that the Department of Health will not oppose any future extension request that is based on PPL’s ability to register consumers and personal assistants in a timely manner.