State Executes Universal Settlement Agreement

LeadingAge NY nursing home members were informed that an agreement has been reached with the State on the Universal Settlement. Specifically, the State has issued an approval letter which reflects: (1) that it has agreed to the Universal Settlement; (2) that it has received approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) ensuring that federal financial participation – which makes up 50 percent of the Universal Settlement payments – is available; and (3) that it will make the first installment payment prior to April 1, 2016 and the second installment payment prior to July 1, 2016.

The two law firms that have been authorized by the State to act as the Universal Settlement trustees – Hinman Straub PC (the trustee most LeadingAge NY members are assigned to) and O’Connell and Aronowitz – will receive the aggregate Universal Settlement payments from the State for each of the five installments, net of any “accounts receivable” (i.e., un-recouped Medicaid liability) amounts to be offset from each facility’s payments. 

We understand from the State that payments for the first installment of the Universal Settlement will be made to the trustees over the next several days. The trustees will, in turn, be responsible for dispersing these payments directly to participating facilities and to certain law firms (with regard to specifically settled litigation) that will be, in turn, distributing portions of the payments to their client facilities. For purposes of making Universal Settlementents will be made by paper check ground mailed to the facility’s address. Accompanying the check will be supporting information on the calculation of the payment amount.

Assuming that the facility has provided a completed IRS Form W-9 and responded to the Survey on Former Owners, Hinman Straub PC will be issuing checks for the first installment within approximately one week of receipt of payments from the State. Hinman Straub PC and O’Connell and Aronowitz will be holding in escrow any payments that cannot be issued to facilities due to failures to submit required documents and/or unresolved disputes with former owners.  

If you have not already done so, please complete, sign, scan and e-mail a Form W-9 for your facility to Michael Paulsen at Hinman Straub (mpaulsen@hinmanstraub.com).    The form is available here:  https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf. Provided you e-mail the signed, scanned form in PDF format, there is no need to ground mail the signed original form.

Any home for which Hinman Straub is the trustee (most voluntary and public homes) that has not done so is asked to complete a brief survey indicating whether the home has had a prior owner.

Implementation of the Universal Settlement has been a major priority for LeadingAge NY, and we are pleased that all required approvals have been received, paving the way for payments to be made. This result would not have been possible without the sustained efforts of our general counsel, Hinman Straub, LeadingAge NY staff, and our member facilities and counsels.   

Contact:   Darius Kirstein, dkirstein@leadingageny.org, or Dan Heim, dheim@leadingageny.org, or call (518) 867-8383