PPL addresses concerns around changes to at home care program

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – The company hired to administer a statewide program that pays at-home personal care assistants responded to critics on Friday. The program serves roughly 250,000 Medicaid eligible New Yorkers and pays family and friends to care for their loved ones.

Public Partnerships, LLC (PPL) is slated to manage the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP).

Governor Kathy Hochul announced PPL was selected to serve as the statewide fiscal intermediary and was awarded a $9 billion contract in September. Hochul and the company maintain the move will strengthen CDPAP.

President and Chief Strategy Officer of PPL Maria Perrin said the company’s goal is to connect consumers to the at-home care they need.

“Our approach is to just focus on the consumers’ and the personal assistants’ experience, making sure their transition goes well and is seamless and that there’s no disruption in care,” said Perrin.

The statewide partnership is slated to go into effect January 6 and they expect the transition to be completed by April 1.

Perrin said in addition to making sure there are no disruptions in care they want to focus on eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse within the system.

“All of the workers who were doing such great care to continue to provide services to the consumers in need. But those who might be fraudulent or waste in the system, that don’t have to do with providing good care, can be rooted out so that those resources can go back to the program and support more people,” said Perrin.

Those who rely on CDPAP have concerns over PPL’s work in other states, citing a class action lawsuit in Pennsylvania, where at-home care providers said they were not paid overtime.

Perrin said that lawsuit is specific to how the program was set up in that state, where the financial intermediary was not considered an employer, but rather was just administering payroll and not authorized to approve overtime.

“It has nothing to do with CDPAP. CDPAP is what’s called a joint employer program, where both the consumer and fi have joint employer responsibilities and so, would have responsibility for paying overtime,” said Perrin.

She said they will open a call center in Albany and eight offices throughout the state. The company expects to hire 1,200 New Yorkers.

PPL will hold its first virtual information session for New Yorkers next week on November 21. In-person information sessions will start in December.