Consumers and personal care attendants continue to face frustrating hurdles in New York State’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP).
The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program allows people with disabilities (or their designated representative) to hire, fire, and manage their own personal care attendants, rather than receiving care from an agency like traditional Medicaid care. Until recently, the program was supported by a network of fiscal intermediaries, organizations that handled payroll and other administrative tasks.
That all changed last year when the state chose Public Partnerships LLC (PPL) as the sole statewide fiscal intermediary. Now, beneficiaries have no choice but to use PPL as their fiscal intermediary if they want to stay in the CDPA program. A move that was supposed to streamline the program and cut down on waste has instead been besieged with problems from the start. Both consumers and Personal Assistants (PAs) have reported problems getting in touch with PPL, long waits on the phone, and endless payroll delays.
“The rollout has been extremely chaotic and fraught with problems,” says consumer Kathleen Downes. “[M]ainly communication issues with PPL, a glitchy app, and nonexistent guidance about benefit cards. Consumers who have brought their concerns to the State have been repeatedly ignored or at worst blamed for failures created by others. The customer service at PPL is terrible. I haven’t felt comfortable onboarding new staff yet because the transition for existing personal assistants has been so rocky and I’m afraid they won’t get paid correctly. The PA side and the consumer side of the app often look different, resulting in shifts being miscounted for one or both sides.”
When asked if the issues have gotten any better since the initial rollout, Downes responded: “Not really. If anything, PPL’s phone center has gotten less communicative. The app is at least functioning but that’s a low bar.”
Personal care attendants have faced their own set of issues when dealing with PPL. Delays in payment have made it difficult for some PAs to afford their bills. PA Tara Murphy told me: “The transition has been a total train wreck to say the least! The health insurance is terrible…you can’t talk to anyone or get a straight answer.” Murphy has been forced to quit her job as a PA and go on unemployment because she was not being paid by PPL. Now, because she was unable to afford her car insurance, her insurance lapsed and her car has been impounded.
A class action lawsuit on behalf of CDPAP consumers, Engesser et al v. McDonald, was filed and a preliminary injunction extended the deadline for consumers to sign up for PPL to August 1, and for PAs to August 15. A proposed settlement has been reached and preliminarily approved by the judge. However, a fairness hearing will be held via Zoom on August 6 to hear from class participants who may be affected. Meanwhile, a hearing sponsored by NYS Senators Skoufis and Rivera to look into the transition, originally scheduled for July 9, has been postponed by the request of the Department of Health, who stated that they would not have the capacity to answer questions on the original date. The new hearing will take place on August 21.
In the meantime, PPL has been mired in internal turmoil. Their president, Maria Perrin, will be stepping down from her post. Simultaneously, the news came out that the CEO of PPL also changed, and the company is now being led by Miki Kapoor. The Times Union reported that Kapoor is a partner at a private equity firm that owns a stake in PPL.