23-04-2025
Governor Hochul weighs in on CDPAP complaints
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — News 8 is continuing to cover the overhaul of the state's Medicaid-funded program which allows people living with disabilities the power to choose their own care providers.
The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) has been around for decades, however during last year's budget session, the Governor announced the massive restructuring, claiming fraud and waste have directly contributed to the ballooning costs, expected to have surpassed $11-billion in 2025. Previously, there were 600+ fiscal intermediaries, companies which handled administrative tasks, such as payroll, but now there is the sole, state-selected FI: Public Partnerships LLC (PPL). News8 has shared and received complaints regarding PPL's website crashing, calls not being returned, the app utilized for clock-in/out (Time4Care) not properly working, and more recently payments not being paid out properly.
Georgia McCabe participates in CDPAP as she cares for her son, Brendan, who is legally blind, has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. She explains that she, along with the other care team members for her son, had wanted to wait a little bit in January after the rollout opened up to allow for any issues to be ironed over, however when she went to make the switch, the information was already obtained.
'All of the sudden one day I just got these email and text messages saying that everything had already been uploaded. And I'm like, I didn't do that but basically, they had all the information for the PA's, as well as my son, and that included his Medicaid number, his name, his address, his social security, etc.' McCabe says.
She's now grown even more wary of any security protocol and says she's locked down her credit reports, signed up for identity guard, and even had title lock insurance.
'My biggest concern is what kind of compliance do they have from HIPPA; since it's Medicaid and it's health related information you know anyone who has access to that usually goes through some sort of training and there are best practices like, do the employees have background checks done on them, did they have any kind of verification, what kind of roll access do these people have? If they're working remote, I have even stronger concerns about the kind of cybersecurity practices they might have in place, or data protection compliance in terms of the various portals people would be utilizing,' McCabe says.
During Governor Kathy Hochul's visit to Rochester on Monday to discuss the budget, which is now three weeks late, News8's Isabel Garcia asked why the administration remains committed to continuing the overhaul at this stage given all the concerns and reported issues:
'We've been talking about this for over a year – this is not an unexpected transition, it was passed in last year's budget so an entire year has passed where we started telling people that this is going to happen and your care will not be disrupted in the long term; a few hiccups early on, but taking care of — but basically starting in January people could transition, they had until April — now it's May 15 – but I will also tell you this, and I hope your reporting will investigate this: there are individual companies who have refused to turn over the information about their patients for the transition to be successful; we are not able to reach them and tell them what was necessary because they were saying, despite the law in the State of New York, they're being obstinate and not sharing that information so I think if you look at the cause for some of this disruption, it is at the hands of those who are intentionally trying to thwart our efforts to make sure we take care of our patients but also stop this wild abuse of taxpayer dollars,' said Governor Hochul.
The NYS Dept. of Health set up hotline to assist with CDPAP inquiries:
The agency also provided the following response when asked about security measures as it relates to PPL: 1-833-947-8666 Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
'The Department continues to closely monitor this transition as part of its ongoing commitment to protecting access to care and supporting caregivers.'
Additional Information:
Regarding the contract, the qualifying language was approved by the State Legislature and the RFP was put out for public bid. The Department of Health followed the standard procurement process, reviewed over 100 responses, and scored each proposal based on the qualifying language, as per state law. At the end of that process, PPL scored the highest and was selected.
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