Hochul admin offers grace period for NY home care switch but still denies any issues in chaotic rollout

The Hochul administration announced Monday a “grace period” for consumers caught in the middle of its turbulent overhaul of the state’s $9 billion home care system – but continued to deflect blame for the chaos.The Department of Health said participants in the consumer directed personal assistance program, or CDPAP, can be reimbursed once their paperwork is processed by Public Partnerships LLC, the company handpicked by Gov.Kathy Hochul’s team to consolidate payroll services.

But State Health Commissioner Jim McDonald blamed a massive backlog on processing and other issues on misinformation from the hundreds of former intermediaries being replaced by PPL.“It’s deeply troubling to me that the past information that has been out there has been so misleading to everybody,” McDonald said at a news conference.The grace period marks a massive turnaround after months of the administration claiming the transition was on track to be completed by April 1, while only occasionally sharing actual numbers of how many people have transitioned.“I don’t view it as secrecy,” McDonald said, when asked why his department often refuses to provide precise data and other information about the transition.The commissioner touted sending 18 cease and desist letters to fiscal intermediaries accused of spreading misinformation.There are more than 600 such firms being part of the transition overall.At Monday’s news conference, PPL CEO Maria Perrin said around 140,000 consumers have completed the transition process.

The DOH said last week that around another 55,000 have left CDPAP altogether and moved to the more expensive, personal care services program.That still doesn’t account for another roughly 85,000 consumers.State Medicaid Director Amir Bassiri said Monday he expected PPL will have completed signing up the 220,000 consumers by April 1.A health department spokesperson later walked back the figure saying Bassiri “misspoke”, but refused to provide an accurat...