What's happening
This bill requires managed long term care plans to distribute state Medicaid funds for home care worker recruitment, training, and retention, and mandates reporting on fund distribution.
Why it matters
Ensures transparency and accountability. by requiring managed long term care plans to disclose the exact amounts and methods used to distribute state Medicaid funds for home care workforce initiatives, making it harder for funds to be diverted for other purposes.
Mandates direct reporting and auditing. , empowering the state to audit agencies and recoup funds if they are misused, which aims to prevent fraud or administrative overhead from eroding investments in frontline home care staff.
Prioritizes frontline worker support. by prohibiting the use of these funds for non-care related expenses, potentially improving job satisfaction, recruitment, and retention among home care aides—an often underpaid and high-turnover sector.
Requires state-level oversight and legislative awareness. through a formal report to legislative health and finance committees, which could inform future policy decisions and spotlight any disparities or inefficiencies in how funds reach home care workers.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Fair Medicaid Fund Distribution
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Referred to health
- Referred to health
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
4971
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
April 3, 2019
Introduced by Sen. RIVERA -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Health
AN ACT to amend the public health law, in relation to the distribution of moneys received by managed long term care programs from the state for medicaid patients
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Paragraph (b) of subdivision 10 of section 3614 of the public health law, as amended by section 5 of part C of chapter 109 of the laws of 2006, is amended and a new paragraph (e) is added to read as follows:
(b) Programs which have their rates adjusted pursuant to this subdivision shall use such funds solely for the purposes of recruitment, training and retention of non-supervisory home care services workers or other personnel with direct patient care responsibility. Such purpose shall include the recruitment, training and retention of non-supervisory home care services workers or any worker with direct patient care responsibility employed in licensed home care services agencies under contract with such agencies. Such agencies are prohibited from using such fund for any other purpose. For purposes of the long term home health care program, such payment shall be treated as supplemental payments and not effect any current cost cap requirement. For purposes of the managed long term care program, plans shall distribute such funds in their entirety using a reasonable methodology. Such payments shall be supplemental to reimbursement rates, and plans shall provide written notification to each contracted agency indicating the amount of funds disbursed for the purpose of recruitment, training and retention of non-supervisory home care services workers or any personnel with direct patient care responsibility. Each such agency shall submit, at a time and in a manner determined by the commissioner, a written certification attesting that such funds will be used solely for the purpose of recruitment, training
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD11031-01-9
S. 4971 2
and retention of non-supervisory home health aides or any personnel with direct patient care responsibility. When submitting attestations to the department, managed long term care plans shall include the methodology utilized in the disbursement of funds. The commissioner is authorized to audit each such agency or program to ensure compliance with the written certification required by this subdivision and shall recoup any funds determined to have been used for purposes other than recruitment and retention of non-supervisory home health aides or other personnel with direct patient care responsibility. Such recoupment shall be in addition to any other penalties provided by law.
(e) The department shall provide a report to the chairs of the senate finance committee, assembly ways and means committee, and senate health and assembly health committees. Such report shall be submitted on or before January first, two thousand twenty and shall include the distribution of monies by plan and provider of the funds set forth in this subdivision.
§ 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the public health law, in relation to the distribution of moneys received by managed long term care programs from the state for medicaid patients
Purpose
This bill would provide transparency in the distribution and allocation of recruitment, training and retention monies provided to managed care plans for distribution to home health care agencies by the state.
Summary of provisions
Section one of the bill amends section 3614 the public health law to require managed long term care plans to distribute recruitment and retention funds to providers in a reasonable methodology and shall provide written notification to contracting agencies of the amount of funds disbursed. In addition, plans must provide attestations as to the methodology for the disbursement of such funds to the department.
Section two establishes the effective date
Justification
For many years, the State has provided home care recruitment and retention funding (HR&R) to be used solely for the purposes of recruit- ment, training and retention of home care aides and other direct care personnel. Under Medicaid fee-for-service contracts, home care agencies received a separate line item in their remittances for their HR&R funds. However, in Medicaid managed care and under Medicaid managed long term care, there is no transparency regarding how the HR&R funds are used once they have been disbursed to managed care plans. Plans are not required to submit records of their HR&R funding allocations to the Department of Health (DOH), and home care providers are not informed how much HR&R funding, if any, is being distributed to them. While some plans maintain that the HR&R funds are embedded in their contracted rates, providers have not seen increases in their rates as a result.
The HR&R funds could help home care providers address the tremendous challenges they face in recruiting, training, and retaining qualified workers, including offering more competitive salaries and other incen- tives in areas experiencing labor shortages. Further investment in home care workforce training will also be essential for home care to fulfill its critical role in delivering value-based care. New and collaborative models of care delivery will require home care workers to be trained in new areas, such as the use of technology to collect and transmit clin- ical data. In addition, HR&R funding can support training and investment in career pathways, such as the Advanced Home Health Aide designation that was enacted last year.
Legislative history
2017-18: S4848 (Hannon)
Fiscal implications
None
Effective date
This act shall take effect immediately.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.