Brief CDPAP Update and FAQs

Last week, the New York State DOH issued a notice to fiscal intermediaries, advising them that the State will soon be issuing a survey, as required by the NYS 2021-2022 FY budget. As readers of our alert will recall, the final State budget establishes the process by which additional fiscal intermediaries may be added to the list of FI awardees. The DOH will soon begin the process of collecting information from fiscal intermediaries in order to decide which additional FIs will be added to that FI awardee list.

Although the DOH notice stated that the survey would be issued soon, there is no indication of when that will be. It is also not clear if the winning fiscal intermediaries will be required to respond to the survey, since the intent of the survey is to add additional and new fiscal intermediaries.  There is no indication that this survey will be used to somehow remove selected winning FIs from the list of awardees.

The budget authorizes the DOH Commissioner to add additional fiscal intermediaries, depending on their main business address, certain nonprofit status, and businesses that are certified by New York State as minority women owned businesses.  Given the expansiveness of the budget language, at a minimum, at least 24 additional FIs could be added to the list of awardees. On the other end of the spectrum, if the Commissioner elects more FIs based on geographic factors, at least 42 additional FIs could be added to the list of awardees.

Presumably, the newly added fiscal intermediaries would be authorized to operate in all of the counties that they selected in their RFO application process. In other words, these newly added FIs would not be limited to operating in the counties where they are headquartered. For successful fiscal intermediaries that are on the current list of awardees, the newly added FIs would dilute their competitive advantage in the market.

It is unlikely that the New York State Comptroller will begin reviewing and certifying any winning fiscal intermediaries until this new survey for additional FIs is conducted and decisions are made. Similarly, it is unlikely that the protests that have been filed by non winning fiscal intermediaries with the Comptroller’s office will be reviewed and decided until the survey process for additional FIs is complete.

Lastly, the DOH’s notice reminded providers that the patient transition process is not required to commence at this time, and that providers should refer to an updated transition policy for fiscal intermediaries, available HERE.