State officials and lawmakers reached a deal to crack down on Medicaid spending, pledging in a “conceptual” budget agreement to reduce administrative costs of a growing home care program by $500 million a year.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday that the state will contract with a single company to handle payroll and administration for the 250,000 people enrolled in the consumer-directed personal assistance program, a home care program that allows New Yorkers to hire a caregiver of their choosing, which could be a family member.
New York currently contracts with up to 700 nonprofits and businesses, known as fiscal intermediaries, to pay personal care aides and take care of other administrative services. State officials have agreed to whittle down the number of businesses doing this work, making a single entity responsible for the $9 billion home care program.
Hochul chalked up the deal to a need to control exorbitant Medicaid costs and eliminate fraud and abuse in the consumer-directed personal assistance program. State spending on the program increased by 1,200% in the last decade, she said.
“It’s well-known that Medicaid is one of the single largest expenses in our state budget,” Hochul said, adding that officials have a responsibility to rein in these costs. The governor called the change an “enormous victory” but said that New York is not done with its crackdown on Medicaid spending. The Commission on the Future of Health Care, an advisory group appointed by the governor last year, has been tasked with guiding Medicaid spending in the next budget year, Hochul said.
Some lawmakers and advocates have pushed back on the proposal to reduce fiscal intermediaries in the consumer-directed personal assistance program, which they say will disrupt care for thousands of older New Yorkers and people with disabilities and put the 700 nonprofits and businesses doing this work out of business.
Hochul outlined additional health care funding in the preliminary budget deal, including a $7 million allocation for compliance efforts associated with new regulations that require hospitals to get people with mental illness into follow-up care more swiftly after discharge. She also announced $3 billion for distressed hospitals and $20 billion for health care infrastructure.
The governor told reporters Monday that New York is still waiting on the federal government to greenlight a potential tax on managed care organizations, a type of health insurer, to access additional federal funding to ease pressures on the Medicaid program.
Amanda D'Ambrosio , 2024-04-16 01:01:40
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