NEW YORK — New York’s Medicaid program is set to undergo a change that could affect hundreds of thousands of residents.

The state plans by October 1 to contract with a single company for its $9 million Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), which allows disabled and elderly residents to hire friends or family members as caregiver.

Some lawmakers, including state senators John Mannion, a Democrat, and Patrick M. Gallivan, a Republican and the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, say eliminating local providers and outsourcing the program to an out-of-state business will deliver a blow to home health care in rural areas.

The lawmakers have asked the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for an analysis.

“Planned cuts to the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program will jeopardize the care and support provided to thousands of elderly and disabled New Yorkers,” said Gallivan and other lawmakers in a letter to the governor on August 22. “Efforts to reform and improve this program must be transparent and enhance, not diminish, the quality of services provided. These planned cuts must be reversed.”

New York has a serious shortage of home health care workers that affects rural residents disproportionately 

CMS says it reviews formal requests from states on a case-by-case basis. If the contract moves forward, CDPAP will implement the changes on April 1, 2025. The lawmakers’ letter accused the NYS Department of Health of mismanaging the program and of “withholding key public information [that] raises serious concerns about the Department’s ability to effectively oversee such a substantial change to the program.”