If you are on Medicaid and disabled, and you need long-term home care or a personal aide or assistance for living, then you might be eligible for the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP).
The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State (CDPAANYS) is dedicated to making sure that disabled patients in New York State can get the care services that they need. The CDPAANYS is dedicated to fighting for the rights and freedoms of consumers, personal assistants, and fiscal intermediaries.
What is the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State (CDPAANYS)?
The CDPAANYS is an independent association that partners with the New York State Department of Health to advocate for the supportive services, those who need them, and those who provide them. The CDPAANYS is primarily devoted to pursuing advocacy for systems change, consumer self-determination, and consumer and personal assistant freedoms.
The CDPAANYS can trace its origins to community grassroots movements that began meeting in 1997. These meetings formed a group that were dedicated to protecting and furthering infrastructure, education, and resources pursuant to the newly created Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP). The CDPAP was created by New York State law to provide personal assistance and aides to individuals who need help with daily living services. With the CDPAP, individuals have great flexibility to choose their caregivers and can choose family of friends. The CDPAANYS is dedicated to making sure that consumers and caregivers have the resources and legal means they need.
In 2000, the CDPAANYS formalized it’s organizational structure and formed a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation named the CDPAANYS was born. The CDPAANYS maintains its grassroots heritage through the support and work of key stakeholders, including people with disabilities, individuals who provide home care services, and those who support the mission of CDPAANYS. CDPAANYS has worked closely with the state Department of Health, the Governor’s office, and several other state organizations to support the needs of consumers and personal assistants.
CDPAANYS activity has resulted in several victories for consumers and providers, including due process protections for consumers, fair hearing trials for those seeking care, creating a standard contract model for fiscal intermediaries, and several other significant achievements. As of 2017, the CDPAANYS has over 35 provider members that serve local communities around the state.
What is the Agenda of CDPAANYS?
The CDPAANYS is dedicated to pursuing advocacy for all disability service providers, consumers, caregivers, and their families. To that end, our current agenda has several items that are intimately and materially related to the ability of those who need personal care or aide services.
As of 2021, CDPAANYS’s legislative agenda includes
Budget Legislative Agenda
Financial cuts to CDPA services have been cut over the past two years, and the global COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated issues in nursing facilities and other personal care settings. To address these issues, the CDPAANYS is focused on reimagining long-term care and community-based care services in New York. The CDPAANYS believes that the state must radically redesign the way that it provides long-term care services. The virus has caused severe emotional, physical, and economic harm to many, with a disproportionate negative impact on the elderly, disabled, and communities of color. The Medicaid CDPA program was very effective at controlling the spread of the virus as it limited contact between patients and caretakers to one-on-one interactions.
Shift Long Term Healthcare Focus to Communities
CDPAANYS is also dedicated to shifting the focus of long-term healthcare off of nursing homes and to the community. COVID-19 has only exposed the necessity of the state to reaffirm the right to independent community living. AS such, the CDPAANYS believes that the state of New York should repeal eligibility restrictions on personal care and CDPA, including daily living requirement minimum activities, increase the investments in Open Doors for transferring people in and out of facilities, and repeal carveout nursing home services.
Increase reimbursements and wages
The state of NY is currently seeing a job shortage in personal care and home care services. Further, the existing workforce, which is primarily composed of immigrants and women of color, is severely underpaid, despite the fact that their services are necessary and provided with excellent quality. To that end, the CDPAANYS aims to push for increased funding to these programs to ensure that disabled individuals can receive the personal care that they need, and so that the government is not in violation of the mandate laid down in Olmstead v L.C. Specifically, the CDPAANYS advocates that New York must:
– Repeal recent 25% cuts to the Home Care Workforce Recruitment Fund
– Allow the equitable reimbursement of administrative costs on a per member, per month basis
– Introduce a standard overtime rate for caregivers to work overtime without inflicting undue burden or financial hardship on consumers.
– Increase wages to 150% of the highest minimum wage in the region for all personal assistants and homecare workers.
Expand Medicaid
The CDPAANYS is also devoted to expanding Medicaid programs, including repealing the Medicaid global cap, repealing eligibility cuts and assessment procedures, ensuring more open and effective access to CDPA, and expanding Medicaid revenues by increasing taxes on the ultra-wealthy. New York has among the highest measures of income inequality in the nation, which, coupled with tax cuts for large corporations, has led to a revenue shortfall. A progressive taxation scheme is necessary to maintain CDPA service and guard against future cuts to critical services.
Increase Affordable Housing Options
CDPAANYS is also focused on combating the lack of accessible affordable housing for New York residents to receive long-term care. Many consumers live in high-cost areas downstate and have difficulties finding accessible housing that they can afford. To this end, the CDPAANYS calls for full funding to Housing Choice Vouchers, Medicaid waiver housing subsidies, and universal accessibility options for all new residence buildings.
Pas New York Health With Long-Term Care
Every New Yorker has the right to access high-quality community-based long term services and get home care if they need it. These services are critically necessary for those who are transitioning to long-term healthcare services. The CDPAANYS is fighting for the wellbeing of millions of New York’s aging population. Theys strongly advocate that the government pass New York Health with a long term care option.
CDPAP Program Lawsuit
The CDPAANYS has recently won a major lawsuit, reversing cuts to caregiver are changes that would have resulted in several consumers losing access to affordable personal care services. The changes would cut reimbursements to the CDPAP program by nearly 80%, which would have critically endangered the program. In fact, shortly after the cuts were made, intermediaries began to lay off workers.
CDPAANYS’s lawsuit ensures that fiscal intermediaries in the program can still handle the costs associated with Medicaid compliance without having to lay off large sectors of their workforce or reduce their wages. The CDPAANYS managed to fight the regulatory changes by arguing that that legally-required feedback was not gathered from stakeholders before the DOH instituted the policy. Additionally, the CDPAANYS argued that the new rates would not cover the cost of doing business, which was a provision that was determined in Olmstead v L.C.
Since then, the CDPAANYS has continued to lobby for the rights of consumers and caregivers statewide, and have
What Kind of Advocacy Does the CDPAANYS Do?
The CDPAANYS is involved in several kinds of advocacy. For example every year in February, the CDPAANYS offers Lobby Day in Albany, New York. Lobby Day is a date meant for the organization to come and express their concerns in governance and raise issues with CDPA programs that need to be addressed. This past year, Advocacy week was all virtual and was focused around the #JustPay4HomeCare initiative to lift up disability priorities in New York state.
CDPAANYS also runs the VoterVoice Action Center, which is dedicated to helping people get involved in local politics and voting in their area. The VoterVoice Action Center is an online portal where citizens can get in direct contact with their local, state, and federal representatives.
The CDPAANYS also offers grant funding to local organizations that are dedicated to providing US-based advocacy groups run by and for disabled people the funds they need for their activities. The Rapid Response fund is just one of the several grants the organization offers.
Conclusions
For nearly 25 years, the CDPAANYS has been assisting New York state citizens to make sure that they have access to the healthcare and in-home care services that they require. CDPAANYS has led several successful policy changes in its quarter-century history, and is still heavily involved in the discourse surrounding public policy in the state.
If you are interested in joining the CDPAANYS , they offer memberships for individuals, providers, and affiliates. Members get access to exclusive benefits and updates, as well as resources for training education for home care assistants. Visit their website here to read more about the various causes they advocate for and their current policy agenda.