ROCHESTER, N.Y. – “Glitch, after glitch, after glitch, after failure, after non-payment.”

That’s how families trying to access the new system that handles Medicaid home care payments describe the roll-out of it.

The Consumer Direct Personal Assistance Program, commonly known as CDPAP allows people with disabilities to hire their own personal caregiver, which can include a family member or friend.   Recently, New York State overhauled the program in an effort to cut down on fraud and abuse. 

New York now uses a single statewide facilitator, Public Partnerships LLC, to manage eligibility, hours and payment for caregivers.  In the past, there were more than 600 intermediaries. 

After much public outcry and legal challenges, the new system launched on April 1^st but many are struggling to use it and tell News10NBC the site and app are crashing, aides aren’t getting paid and no one is picking up the phone at Public Partnerships to deal with the problems.

 “They don’t return calls, you email, they don’t even acknowledge you emailed them,” says Kim Conway, who provides care for her father-in-law through the CDPAP program.

“We all knew they were a train wreck, every state has fired them so why did New York even pick them,” wonders Heather Burroughs whose daughter requires 24/7 care at home.   

They are just a few of the thousands of families struggling to make sure their loved ones with disabilities have the care they need at home to stay at home.

Burroughs’ is from Rochester, all of the caregivers who work with her daughter are registered and logging hours in the new system but none of them have been paid yet. “Right now they’re all trying to hang tough, I told them I’d pay them out of pocket not really understanding how much money that would really be, I just wanted them to stay,” Burroughs says.

It’s a similar situation for the aides who help care for Conway’s father. “None of my overnight aides are being paid for their shifts, they work 12-16 hour shifts, every one of them has been denied,” she says.

Even if these are technical issues that’ll eventually get resolved, caregivers like Rebecca MacNeill can’t afford to just wait and hope for the best. “It’s devastating that I might have to walk away from this job just because this is happening,” MacNeill says.

Burroughs can cover for her caregivers for now but she’s heartbroken thinking about people with disabilities who don’t have that luxury. “If the system had been rolled out in a safe way we could have made sure that the most complex people, the people without a safety net wouldn’t be put in this position,” Burroughs says. 

But at this point, there’s no going back for people who’ve already transitioned to the system so, families are hoping that Public Partnerships, smooths things out for the sake of those that need the care.  “She’s 18, and she deserves to be in her family home with the people she loves being part of society, I know what happens to people in nursing homes, I worked in one for 7 years, I will do everything I can to keep her out of that situation,” Burroughs says of her daughter.

Governor Kathy Hochul has said the change was necessary to save millions of dollars in taxpayer waste due to massive fraud in the program.  She had promised families that the overhaul wouldn’t change eligibility or timely payments.

Of the roughly 250,000 disabled people who were originally enrolled in the program, the NYSDOH last reported that 40,000 still hadn’t transitioned to the new system.

News10NBC Investigative Reporter Jennifer Lewke reached out to NYSDOH on Friday to see if it was aware of the issues and working with PPL to try and rectify them as soon as possible, in a statement a spokesperson says, “We’ve made great progress as hundreds of thousands of consumers have access to services they rely on, and personal assistants are registered and logging hours with PPL. We will continue to work with everyone moving forward as we work to ensure all consumers have access to services.”

NYSDOH says that Public Partnerships LLC (PPL) has increased its call center staff to more than 2,000 people this week in an effort to serve customers experiencing issues.

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