MMC07032020 - Page 18

Care orgs on the chopping block Groups for people wih disabilities facing massive cuts amid pandemic BY BEN VERDE Agencies that provide specialized care for people with developmental disabilities are facing a round of unprecedented Medicaid cuts, which care providers say will lead to hundreds of layoffs. Care Coordination Organizations, which help manage things like healthcare, housing, food, and legal assistance for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities, face a 16 percent reduction from the state’s Offi ce of People with Developmental Disabilities — which advocates say will total up to $75 million in lost funding statewide each year. Care providers say the cuts, which stem from coronavirusrelated budget shortfalls and are set to go into effect on July 1, may not have an impact on the number of people they serve — but they will negatively impact the quality of care they offer. “The issue is the impact on the quality of the service,” said James Moran, CEO of Care Design NY, which services a little �� 16 COURIER LIFE, JULY 3-9, 2020 over 10,000 people in Brooklyn and 108,000 people across New York state. “It’s no different than thinking about a hospital taking a smaller kind of cut. They’re not going to stop serving people that walk in the door…it’s the impact of the quality of the service.” And the quality of the care is no small matter to the families of those who receive it, said one parent. “Care Design doesn’t just care for, they care about,” said East Flatbush parent Geri Turner Bright, whose 22-yearold son Robert has been with the program since its inception two years ago. “They have a general mission, but then it becomes individualized.” Those enrolled in the program — the majority of whom live at home with family instead of in a group home setting — are assigned a care manager, who normally help to provide care to roughly 30 participants each. For the Bright family, that has meant having their care manager Debra Emmanuel- Edwards help enroll Robert in Medicaid, and help them organize their two-family home so that Robert could live with some independence in the spare apartment. The cuts come after the state’s arrangement with the federal government — in which the feds covered 90 percent of Medicaid costs and the state covered only 10 percent — comes to an end after two years from the program’s inception. As of July 1, the federal government will require the state to pay 50 percent of the Medicaid bill when it comes to care coordination organizations. The Offi ce of People with Developmental Disabilities defended the cuts and claimed they would result in no changes to the services families receive. The 16 percent cut is just the latest in a long series of slashes to services that help New Yorkers with developmental and intellectual disabilities over the past decade, which have done the most damage to the group home system. The budget blows also come as direct service providers, like those at Care Coordination Organizations, fi nd themselves on the front lines of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Moran says it hints at a greater attitude within Albany that people with disabilities are an expensive population to care for, putting them fi rst in line for the chopping block. “More and more with the fi scal pressures this is seen as a high-cost population,” he said. “Here’s a program you started less than two years ago and you’re already planning to reduce funding even though it’s still in the stage it’s in — it’s not very thought through.” Robert Howard Bright III, a member of Care Design NY. Care Design NY ��