Attorneys from the New York Legal Assistance Goup (NYLAG) and Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, representing six individuals and two independent living centers as plaintiffs, seek a temporary restraining order from the Court to delay the New York State Department of Health’s transition to a single fiscal intermediary, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), as it would disrupt critical in-home care for older New Yorkers and those with disabilities who rely on Medicaid’s Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, to lead safe, dignified lives in their own communities.

The State’s April 1 deadline to transition CDPAP participants from using 600 different fiscal intermediaries to one has proven impossible as tens of thousands of participants have yet to make the transition—not for lack of effort, but because they either were not made aware of the change or because the process is so confusing and inaccessible that they have not been able to complete their enrollment or register their personal assistants.

Plaintiffs have cited issues with PPL’s beleaguered registration processes, including:

1. the system incorrectly saving previously entered information;
2. the system loading CDPAP participant’s information where the personal assistant’s registration information should be, but having no way to adjust it;
3. receiving no callbacks from the PPL service line despite leaving a phone number on multiple occasions; or
4. receiving a call back from a representative who did not know how to fix the problem.

Such technical issues have prevented tens of thousands of CDPAP participants and their caregivers from registering with just days to go before the current 600 fiscal intermediaries shut down to complete the transition. This will mean that personal assistants cannot get paid, which in many cases will leave those in need of in-home care without critical assistance.

The Department of Health’s rollout of the transition to PPL denies participants’ rights to notice and hearing to which all Medicaid beneficiaries are entitled in the face of state actions that would end their vital CDPAP services leading, in some cases, to serious medical harm. Plaintiffs seek a delay in the transition until these vital rights, enshrined in both the Medicaid Act and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, can be meaningfully provided.