ROCHESTER, N.Y. – The Center for Disability Rights and the Regional Center for Independent Living are trying to help people whose aides aren’t getting paid after the state forced everyone to switch to a new CDPAP system that went live on April 1.

“Our lobby hasn’t been this full since we were doing vaccinations during COVID, just a swell of people coming through,” Bruce Darling, President of the Center for Disability Rights, says. 

People who are using the new CDPAP system to facilitate payment for caregivers were supposed to get their first paychecks last week but many are still waiting.

“Glitch after glitch after glitch after failure after non-payment,” one user says.

“They don’t return calls, you email, they don’t even acknowledge you emailed them,” another user told News10NBC.

“We all knew they were a train wreck, every state has fired them so why did New York pick them,” a third user said last week. 

The New York State Department of Health told News10NBC late last week that its vendor, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), has increased the number of customer service agents to 2,000 in an effort to smooth out issues with the rollout.

“Okay, so they may have added more customer service reps but they also wildly expanded the number of calls that are coming in because everyone who is not getting paid is also calling in,” Darling says. “People resorted to emailing over the weekend, the PPL email box filled up and basically was sending rejection notices back to people saying, the mailbox is full and cannot accept emails at this time.”

The Center for Disability Rights and the Regional Center for Independent Living are trying to help those whose aides aren’t getting paid because the last thing they want is for aides to be forced to walk away.

“There’s a constant stream of people coming into our office and we are working with them to onboard and move through the process as quickly as possible,” Darling says.

The Commissioner of NYSDOH said in a statement this week that thousands of people did receive their first check from PPL last week and for those who didn’t, things will get worked out.

If you’re disabled or take care of someone who is and you’re having trouble enrolling in the system or getting paid, the Center for Disability Services will try to help. 

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