DOH Meets with Home Care Provider Associations

(Sept. 24, 2024) LeadingAge NY and other home care provider association colleagues met with the Department of Health’s (DOH) Division of Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) last week. Michael Chittenden, head of the division, and Millie Ferriter, head of surveillance, met with the associations.

The following items were discussed:

• The next lunch and learn with DOH is for Assisted Living Program (ALP) Licensed Home Care Services Agencies (LHCSAs). The webinar will review basics, survey, and communications between ALPs and LHCSAs. Register here. There will be an October webinar on emergency preparedness and a webinar on plans of correction (POCs) in the future.
• A Dear Administrator Letter (DAL) on telehealth was recently issued specifically for home care and hospice providers. The DAL prohibits telehealth for “initial” assessments. DOH stated that it does not apply to reassessments or additional assessments – agencies must use their own judgment. More about the DAL can be found here. The Home Care Association of NYS (HCA) shared that the 2007 home care telehealth statute had originally established separate rates for telehealth, but when episodic payments started shortly thereafter, they rolled telehealth for home care into the rate. It was suggested that DOH pull telehealth out of the episodic rate. DOH staff will consider this, will talk more, and include the Office of Health Insurance Programs (OHIP).
• Michael Chittenden shared home care data again from the Health Electronic Response Data System (HERDS) and the Statistical Reports for Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHAs) and LHCSAs. LeadingAge NY will be working to put this data into some format for members to understand. We have posed several other questions requesting additional data to show unmet demand and Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Services (CDPAS) utilization.
• DOH stated that they are going to look at redundancy between the Home Care Cost Report and Statistical Reports. Michael Chittenden is new and will move ahead with new reporting periods, but will work on this.
• CHHA and Hospice Statistical Reports will be posted by DOH in late September. The LHCSA Statistical Report will be posted in mid-October.
• Millie Ferriter reported that DOH is seeing more complaints – about a 10 percent increase regarding comprehensive assessments and patient rights relating to CHHA and hospice care. She thinks this may be due to the recent Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) change. It was stated that granularity is difficult for new nurses in home care. This may be an opportunity for DOH and associations to do more education on these two topics.

Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871