Elizabeth Jois, a supervising attorney with NYLAG’s Special Litigation Unit, spoke with Spectrum News 1 about the lawsuit that NYLAG recently filed on behalf of New York Medicaid recipients enrolled in the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) to secure a delay to the rushed and tumultuous transition from 600 fiscal intermediaries to one, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL):
“The language from the Department of Health seems to be that people aren’t losing services, it’s just that their aides may not be paid, but that is really the same thing here,” said Elizabeth Jois, a supervising attorney with New York Legal Assistance Group.
Jois is fighting for a preliminary injunction to extend the transition deadline until Sept. 30.
Attorneys with the Health Department and New York Legal Assistance Group will keep negotiating over the weekend and file a new preliminary injunction by midnight Tuesday. The judge will make a decision to grant that injunction, and possibly extend the timeline, in a hearing on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of CDPAP users and workers haven’t finished registering with PPL as many say they’ve faced issues logging hours worked or their phone calls go unreturned for weeks.
Health Department counsel on Friday said PPL is assembling a “special escalation team” to address the backlog of unfinished registrations.
More than a dozen lawsuits filed to delay the change have not been successful. But the latest federal suit has thrown a wrench in the transition at the last minute, and threatens to upend the timeline state leaders want.
“We have just seen from our own clients so many instances where they can’t get through this process through no fault of their own,” Jois said.
Watch the full segment and read the written piece in Spectrum News 1, originally published on April 4, 2025.
For more information on the case, visit our live, dedicated page here.
