The Situation Report – February 26, 2024
HCA is extremely concerned about this year’s evolving State Budget. The Governor’s proposed budget and subsequent 30-day amendments very simply threaten the existence of core parts of the home healthcare system in New York State.
Time is of the essence over these next several days, especially as the Senate and Assembly are caucusing internally this week to determine priorities in preparing their own individual one-house budget bills, that will either put into play or reject the Governor’s proposals, as well as to advance their own separate budget initiatives. It is imperative that these bills reject the Governor’s Article 36 Hospital at Home proposal, reject amendments to the Hospital-Home Care-Physician Collaboration Law (§2805-x), reject the Governor’s cuts and both CDPAP and MLTC reforms, as well as add crucial funding for home care and hospice.
Without the strongest and most engaged advocacy we have delivered, this budget’s proposals stand to fundamentally undermine Article 36 by allowing hospitals and other entities to deliver care and services in patient homes without licensure to do so, circumventing the very structure of home healthcare delivery that has existed for decades. As if that threat isn’t significant enough, the Executive Budget proposes to impose further strain on the industry by:
- undermining the Managed Long Term Care (MLTC) infrastructure they fought so hard to create, through MLTC rate reductions, eliminating the quality pool and instituting a procurement process;
- prohibiting an MLTC and/or Licensed Home Care Services Agency (LHCSA) and/or Fiscal Intermediary (FI) to own, be owned, control, or be controlled by the same organization or company; and
- eliminating Wage Parity for personal assistants working within the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP).
HCA continues to fight extremely hard against these proposals, urging a rejection of all of the above by both houses of the legislature in their forthcoming one-house budget proposals.
Further, the Association has asked the Senate and Assembly to include and fund Assemblywoman Paulin’s bill (A7568) in Article VII and Appropriation bills to provide vital funding for home healthcare agencies and hospices, in order to sustain the industry and providers’ ability to meet patient needs.
A concise one page document highlighting HCA priority requests can be located here.
The participation of every home care agency is urgently needed to make this advocacy as impactful as possible. Legislators want and need to hear from you: the individuals casting votes in their districts and taking care of the patients who do the same and employing thousands of workers.
Please take a moment to locate the contact information for your representatives, using this tool, and place a call to their offices. Arrange to have a meeting with them and reiterate the points we have outlined above, or even leave a message with their staff if you are pressed for time! They need to know how important this is to you.
HCA will continue to contact you directly to encourage these legislative meetings and offer assistance. If you are new to this, don’t worry! You can keep it very simple and you don’t need to have all the details to still be effective. Here is a quick overview of the basics! We will be following up on this effort each week via Situation Report, social media, and alerts!
Please contact Alex Fitz at afitz@hcanys.org with any questions or if you need assistance.