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NEW Home Care Provider Minimum Wage Reconciliation Survey

On Aug. 29th, the Department of Health (DOH) informed LeadingAge NY that home care providers received notices on another Home Care Provider Minimum Wage Reconciliation Survey that would be issued within the next couple of weeks.

As you recall, this is a response to the Minimum Wage Law enacted by the Legislature, as per Article 19 of the New York State Labor Law. This next survey will have two objectives:

  1. The survey will reconcile actual Medicaid minimum wage costs to actual Medicaid minimum wage funding distributions. While minimum wage projections have been included in current rates, effective Dec. 31, 2016, those figures will be reconciled using data from the survey.
  2. Data from the survey will also be used to assist in determining funding to include in future Medicaid Managed Care and Fee-for-Service rates.

As before, the following home care providers will be required to submit the survey:

  • Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHAs);
  • Licensed Home Care Services Agencies (LHCSAs);
  • Long Term Home Health Care Programs (LTHHCPs); and
  • Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Service Fiscal Intermediaries (FIs).

This survey will capture worker wage details, the number of employees impacted by title grouping, contractual relationships between home care agencies and managed care plans, as well as contractual relationships amongst the home care agencies. This survey will be occurring annually.

What’s new: DOH has enlisted the assistance of the New York State Office of Pool Administration (OPA) to develop the electronic Home Care Provider Minimum Wage Reconciliation Survey and to assist with data collection. This new platform was developed because of the complicated contractual relationships that home care agencies typically have with other providers and managed care plans.

The first step in the survey process will entail providers to register by establishing an OPA account with a User ID and Password. After an OPA account has been established, you will be able to access the survey when it becomes available, manage the dashboard, update contacts for the User ID, and view new information regarding the Home Care Provider Minimum Wage Reconciliation Survey here.

Please note: Medicaid minimum wage funding levels, including funding already received, will be dependent on submission of a satisfactory survey.

LeadingAge NY has been in contact with DOH regarding several questions. We participated with members in an earlier LHCSA Statistical Report workgroup when this new survey was mentioned and had an opportunity to ask members how to improve the survey. Per DOH, the comments that were submitted had to be reviewed by DOH, the Department of Labor (DOL), and the Division of the Budget (DOB). LeadingAge NY has asked to see a copy of the survey. In addition, all stakeholders present requested a recorded webinar to assist providers with accurately completing the survey.

Update: Because of our advocacy, DOH has stated that they will conduct a webinar during the second week of September.

If you have difficulties accessing the website, please contact OPA at webpools@hcrapools.org or 315-671-3800. If you submit any questions, please include the following information: Provider Name and corresponding License, Op-Cert, or MMIS number of the Home Care provider.

We will continue to keep members informed on the upcoming webinar. If you have any questions about this process, please contact me.

Contact: Cheryl Udell, cudell@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871