The Department of Justice is currently investigating the reform of the home care medical assistance program in New York State. This reform involves transferring the salary management authority of the $9 billion “Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program” (CDPAP), also known as the “Family Care Plan,” to a single company.
CDPAP is a Medicaid-funded program in New York State that allows individuals with disabilities or chronic illnesses to hire and manage personal assistants, including the option to hire family members as caregiving assistants. Due to this setup, the program is widely utilized in the Chinese community and referred to as the “Family Care Plan.”
According to a report by the New York Post on June 2nd, sources revealed that investigators from the Consumer Protection Branch of the Department of Justice have conducted interviews with officials of the “Public Partnerships Limited Liability Company” (PPL) regarding this matter. PPL is the entity selected by the New York State Department of Health to take over all salary services for CDPAP. The sources disclosed that the investigation has allocated significant resources to examine potential criminal or civil liabilities in this case.
The state government’s reform initiative requires approximately 280,000 CDPAP users to re-register and transition to PPL for salary processing, aiming to reduce waste, fraud, and resource misuse. Previously, salary processing for CDPAP was decentralized among over 600 “Fiscal Intermediaries,” and the state government believed that the system lacked adequate oversight, leading to uncontrolled expenditures.
However, some caregivers have reported difficulties accessing the system to submit their work hours, resulting in delayed payments, and some have resorted to legal action due to these issues.
On April 28th, the Legal Aid Society announced that tens of thousands of caregiver members have filed a federal lawsuit against PPL, accusing the company of failing to timely or fully distribute wages since taking over the CDPAP program in April, leading to hardships for caregivers and care recipients.
In a statement submitted by the Consumer Protection Branch of the Department of Justice in the federal lawsuit, it was noted that New York State hastily pushed forward the reform without sufficient preparation and risk assessment, resulting in the rapid transition of hundreds of thousands of CDPAP users from several fiscal intermediaries to PPL, exposing “structural, operational, and logistical multiple deficiencies.”
As of the time of this report, the Department of Justice has not yet provided any comments on the investigation.
In response to this investigation, a spokesperson from Governor Hochul’s office stated, “New York State’s necessary CDPAP reform ensures that those truly in need of care can continue to receive services while ending the bureaucratic expenditure mismanagement that put CDPAP on the brink of financial crisis. The removal of over 600 administrative intermediaries is a sensible reform that helps eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, including the $68 million fraud case recently prosecuted by federal prosecutors. This transformative work is proceeding effectively, and the Department of Health will continue to collaborate with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that consumers and service providers receive the necessary care and support.”