(August 9, 2025) The State Department of Health issued a Dear Administrative Letter DHCBS 25-03 last week which updates policies and procedures for administrative approval of licensure amendments for Licensed Home Care Services Agency (LHCSAs).  

This DAL supersedes DAL 22-02, and provides a new submission process and email address for all Administrative Licensure Amendment requests, and Attachment B provides the planning areas for all of the regional planning areas. Please note a recent change to the Western Regional Office.  

Effective immediately, all requests for Administrative Licensure Amendments to a LHCSA license will be handled by the Bureau of Home and Community Based Services Licensure Unit.  

Specifically, Administrative Licensure Amendments include:  

A. Deleting or Adding a Service  

B. Deleting or Adding a County  

C. Adding an Additional Site  

D. Closing a Site/License Surrender  

E. Change of Address of Agency and/or Operator  

F. Change of Legal Entity (Corporate) Name, Change of Assumed Name (d/b/a) or New Assumed Name (d/b/a)  

G. License Reprint  

The DAL includes a checklist of required documents and supporting information by transaction type.  

All Administrative Licensure Amendments require the approval of the New York State Department of Health (the Department), and some require notice to the appropriate Regional Office at the address listed in Attachment B (New York State Department of Health Regional Offices and Central Office Contact Information).  

Members should note a significant change – in accordance with this new policy, the Department will only approve expansion requests to add a county when there are fewer than five LHCSAs actively serving patients in the requested county. Actively serving patients means that the LHCSA has a plan of care in place for at least one (1) patient who is receiving services in their home. Lastly, please note that the Department reserves the right to seek additional information from the operating entity in order to render a determination on an Administrative Licensure Amendment request.  

This does not effect LHCSAs proposing to exclusively serve CCRCs, Nurse Family Partnerships, PACE or Assisted Living Programs.  

We assume agencies interested in adding a county that is presumed to have sufficient LHCSA access due to 5 or more LHCSAs actively serving patients in that county, will then be required to follow the need methodology for LHCSAs and provide sufficient information to demonstrate lack of access in that county as required by DAL 22-14.    

Additional LHCSA licensure resources may be found here.  As LHCSA members are aware, the LHCSA HERDs reporting requirements recently changed to collect active patient cases per county per LHCSA. This information will help in determining whether current LHCSAs are actually actively serving patients in a county or are just licensed to do so.  This information will soon be available to the public to help the state, agencies and other parties understand gaps in LHCSA access across the state, and will be a good resource for supporting documentation to demonstrate need.  

Questions regarding this correspondence should be forwarded to homecareliccert@health.ny.gov or via phone to (518) 408-8784. 

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