| The New York State Budget, Health and Mental Hygiene Bill (the “HMH Bill”), has been published (read it here). There are several important highlights for home care providers.CDPAP RFO
As we had indicated in our alerts last week, the Gottfried bill has been defeated and, instead, there is significantly narrower language in the final budget that will provide the Commissioner of Health with discretion to select additional fiscal intermediaries to be added to the list of awardees. As discussed in our alert (see here), the Commissioner will canvas the current RFO applicants for certain information and, based on the responses received from such applicants, may select qualifying intermediaries (but is not required to select any). The HMH Bill authorizes the Commissioner to select:
- “one or two additional applicants” that are located (with their primary address) in a county that has more than 250,000 residents but less than 500,000.
- “one or two additional applicants” that are located (with their primary address) in a county that has more than 500,000 residents.
- “at least two additional applicants” that are nonprofits, who have been performing fiscal intermediary services since January 1, 2012, and that are licensed to provide waiver services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities
- “at least two additional applicants” that are nonprofits, who have been performing fiscal intermediary services since January 1, 2012, and that “serve racial and ethnic minority residents, religious minority residents, or new Americans in those consumers’ primary language.”
- “at least two additional applicants” that are certified by New York State as a minority or woman-owned business enterprise.
FAIR PAY FOR HOME CARE
The Fair Pay for Home Care is not included in the HMH Bill and, thus, it appears that this measure was defeated. As we had discussed, the Fair Pay for Home Care was a proposal to raise home care workers’ wages to almost $40,000/year. It also included an increase in wage parity benefit rates.
LHCSA RFO
The HMH Bill also does not repeal the LHCSA RFO. In the days leading up to the publication of the HMH Bill, there were a number of efforts calling on the Legislature to repeal the LHCSA RFO language from the law, but it appears these efforts were not successful. Thus, providers will be faced with the LHCSA RFO at some point in the future, once the Department of Health is ready and able to publish the request for proposals.
Please let us know if you have any questions regarding the implications of the Budget bill.
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