State Sen. John Liu has warned that thousands of Medicaid patients may face disruptions to critical at-home care if the state legislature does not extend the April 1 deadline allowing patients and caregivers to transition to statewide fiscal intermediary Public Partnerships, LLC.
Public Partnerships, LLC (PPL) is now responsible for managing payroll and administrative functions for all participants in Medicaid’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP). This program allows chronically ill or physically disabled individuals to hire their own caregivers, often family members or close friends.
Advocates for CDPAP state that the program empowers patients with greater control over their care, ensuring culturally appropriate and personalized assistance.
In 2024, New York State mandated that all CDPAP participants, including patients and caregivers, transition to PPL. The transition period began on Jan. 6 and is slated to end on April 1.
Liu has now called for that deadline to be extended, citing rushed implementation and inadequate outreach conducted during the transition period. He stated that thousands of families, particularly in immigrant communities, remain confused and unprepared due to language barriers and a lack of clear guidance on the transition period.
He emphasized that failure to extend the deadline would put patients’ continued access to health care services at risk. Liu also highlighted low turnout at PPL-sponsored registration events in Flushing, a community with large Chinese, Korean and Bengali-speaking populations.
Liu pointed out that the low turnout showcased that outreach efforts failed to reach multi-language communities adequately. He additionally expressed concerns that key steps in the registration process, such as account verification and password creation, were available only in English, adding further complications for non-English speakers.
“Thousands of families who rely on CDPAP for critical healthcare face devastating disruptions due to a hastily put together enrollment period, language barriers and insufficient outreach,” Liu said in a statement. “The April 1st deadline for these patients and their caretakers is less than three weeks away, and too many are still unclear about how to even enroll.
“More time is needed to guarantee a smooth transition for all enrollees, and we need to push back this deadline so that no one is left behind.”
PPL officials, on the other hand, contended that Liu and his staff attended one of the first community-based events in Flushing on Feb. 12 when the outreach campaign was only building momentum. Officials stated that they had more than 100 people at each of the previous two Flushing-based community outreach events and said PPL has been fighting a “misinformation campaign” encouraging patients and caregivers to delay transitioning.
PPL officials further argued that they had launched a widespread multi-touch outreach campaign for multi-language communities, including print ads in 24 publications across 12 languages, including Chinese, Bengali and Korean and television commercial campaigns in both England and Spanish.
Furthermore, PPL officials said they met with several advocacy group to distribute information to the community including India Home at Bangladeshi Center of Jamaica Queens and the Queens Developmental Disability Council.
They also stated that PPL’s website translates into over 200 languages, while PPL flyers have been distributed in various languages throughout non-English speaking communities.
Patients or caregivers seeking to transition to PPL can do so over the phone by calling the customer support center at 1-833-247-5346. The support center is also available in Arabic (1-833-278-4829), French (1-833-279-3511), Haitian Creole (1-833-279-3513 ), Spanish (1-833-281-0927) and TTY (1-833-204-9042).
They can also transition online using the PPL@Home online system or by using CDPAP facilitators, community-based organizations located throughout New York State that can help people transition to PPL.
Finally, patients and caregivers can transition to PPL by attending an in-person or virtual session for dedicated support. For a full list of upcoming sessions, click here. Two registration sessions are set to take place in Flushing on Tuesday, March 25, with one session from 10 a.m. until 12 p.m. and the other from 3-5 p.m.
New York State Department of Health officials stated that nearly 140,000 consumers and nearly 150,000 personal assistants have either started or completed the registration process with PPL ahead of the April 1 deadline as of Monday, March 17.
“Hundreds of thousands of CDPAP consumers and workers have already taken action as a part of this transition, which remains on track for April 1. If you’re a CDPAP consumer or worker who hasn’t started the process yet, don’t wait to get your registration underway — get it started today,” State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement.
Additionally, the State estimates that another 40,000 consumers statewide are already in process of transitioning to Personal Care Services (PCS), allowing home care users to choose the care program that is best for them.
