Firm Secures Preliminary Injunction on Behalf of Medicaid Recipients
April, 2025 - New York, New York
On April 10, the firm, along with co-counsel at New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), obtained an important victory for disabled New Yorkers at risk of losing access to critical in-home care services through the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), which allows Medicaid patients to select and train their own personal aides.
The program, which supports approximately 280,000 New Yorkers and employs about 400,000 aides, is transitioning from 600 fiscal intermediaries to one, Public Partnerships, LLC (PPL), and had required all program participants and caregivers to enroll with the company by the end of March to continue care. The registration process and initial deadline proved ineffective, as less than half of participants had successfully enrolled within weeks of the cutoff date.
On March 26, the firm and NYLAG filed a putative class action in the Eastern District of New York, alleging that New York’s planned transition for CDPAP violated the 14th Amendment and the Medicaid Act—which require that Medicaid recipients have notice, an opportunity to be heard, and continuing care before they lose service. The firm argued that the rushed transition would deprive tens of thousands of New Yorkers of CDPAP services without these prerequisites because PPL lacked the administrative capacity to prevent gaps in care.
On March 31, following a hearing, the Court granted a temporary restraining order requiring the State to “ensure and take whatever action necessary to ensure that all CDPAP consumers and [home health aides] who receive care and payment before [the April 1 transition deadline], regardless of their present registration status, . . . continue to receive care from their existing [home health aides], who shall be timely paid for their services.”
Ten days later, the Court granted a preliminary injunction that will provide more time and administrative support for participants seeking to transition to PPL and allow home health aides to continue getting paid during the transition. The deadline has been extended until May 15 for CDPAP consumers and June 6 for home health aides. The New York State Department of Health has also created a CDPAP Transition Hotline to aid program participants and their caregivers with this process.
The Patterson Belknap team, which included Lisa Cleary, Kate Ross, Jonah Wacholder, and Emma Brill, was featured in the American Lawyer’s “Litigator of the Week” column for their work on the matter.
To read press coverage from the New York Law Journal, please click here.
