Home care agencies sue N.Y. in federal court over CDPAP change
ALBANY — Four home care agencies who say they will lose lucrative business contracts under the impending shakeup of a state-backed Medicaid program for people with long-term health care needs are suing the state Department of Health, joining a wave of opposition against the plan.
It comes amid mounting criticism of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to change the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, which allows over a quarter million New Yorkers to choose their home care workers and get reimbursed by the state’s Medicaid program. Over 600 businesses known as “fiscal intermediaries” have sprung up since the CDPAP program was rolled out in New York, and offer largely administrative services between the patients enrolled in the program and Medicaid itself.
Beginning in October, they may all be forced out of business: the state Health Department will choose a single, statewide fiscal intermediary to administer the CDPAP program, something the agencies argue represents a blow to market choice.
Hochul has long said the change is a necessary one and that the industry has long been plagued with fraud and abuse. In defending the state’s choice to eliminate the home care agencies, she has said spending on the program has jumped significantly in the past few years, driven in part by advertising that markets CDPAP as convenient and lucrative.
Home care agencies have mounted an intensifying campaign over the summer to attempt to stop Hochul and health officials from implementing the change. The three New York City-based fiscal intermediaries suing state Health Department Commissioner James McDonald in U.S. District Court in Manhattan allege the shakeup amounts to a breach of their constitutional rights.
“Instead of favoring the public at large by strengthening and improving CDPAP, (this) eliminates choice for services by turning the fiscal intermediary industry into a government-supported monopoly run by a single statewide fiscal intermediary that will be hand-picked by the state,” states the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday. “This irrational crackdown on competition may benefit the new statewide fiscal intermediary — a private entity — but will harm the public by reducing the level and quality of home care for New York residents who need it most.”
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