The Hochul administration has eased the deadline for the state's $9 billion home care system unity overhaul.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is planning to release the plan in just a few days, until the April 1 deadline for more than 280,000 home care recipients to move to select companies to process payments.
The Ministry of Health said it would announce a “plan to protect consumers and workers who need additional time for the transition,” but it still holds deadlines for consumer personal assistance programs, or CDPAP.
Hochul has handpicked public partnership LLC as a new intermediary for integrating payroll services from hundreds of companies.
But the whistleblower said PPL is struggling to meet demand as they are flooded with calls and are about to reach deadlines.
“I can't imagine it. We went from the frying pan to the fire,” said a PPL employee.
As workers were signing on that day, hundreds of callers said they were on hold by 8am, and hundreds said they were still waiting by the end of the business day.
“Thousands of phone calls are abandoned a day,” the source said, claiming management is stepping up pressure and “micromanaging” agents' time.
The company's workforce has worked remotely and has recently bolstered its agents from outside New York in recent weeks, despite the PPL saying employees will be based locally.
Critics of the transition recently protested outside the vacant office space belonging to a company near Albany.
“If I had another year or two, it might work. But as it is, it's a show. It's –T show,” the whistleblower pointed out.
The Hochul administration's turnaround comes after it claimed that a few weeks of deployment is planned.
As of Thursday, 200,000 consumers had begun the transition, according to the PPL.
A PPL spokesman did not address questions from the post on Sunday.
They point out that thousands of consumers still lack some of the documents needed to sign up for new companies.
However, much of the delay is due to failures due to higher UPS. For example, CDPAP recipients must sign a memorandum. Despite the transition that began in early January, the document was only available in Spanish about two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, sources point out that the PPL is cutting through key corners.
The company has not reviewed the I-9 employment verification form submitted by the personal assistant.
Additionally, PPL does not require personal assistants to sign off to consumers at the timing. This embeds key tenants in a system aimed at stopping the widespread waste, fraud and abuse that has swelled to more than $9 billion a year.
“The first thing I heard when I thought it was a big neon light 'scam',” the whistleblower said.
A PPL spokesman claims that the I-9 has been reviewed and consumers need to sign off to their time cards.
A copy of the PPL training material shared with the Post states that “timesheets do not require approval at this time.” In the memo section of the same PowerPoint slide, PPL writes: “There is no timesheet approval. None. Zero.”
Sources say agents should regularly fight “intentional misinformation” given to consumers and PAs by existing financial intermediaries.
Incorrect information is also accompanied Millions of dollars Lobbying and advertising campaigns to stop the transition. The Health Department has spent millions increasing the profits of suspected transitions, according to a post reported last month.
On April 1, thousands of people whose PAS could be forced into hospitals and nursing facilities to prevent the transition from completing, they created a health plan to financially support the program in a letter appealing to Hochul to delay the transition last month.
On Thursday, even the powerful Healthcare Union 1199SEIU is expected to earn millions of people by unifying PAS and is being charged in court for helping to rig PPL bids, but is being asked to ease the pressure on deadlines.
“With more than 100,000 workers still need to begin the registration process, there must be immediate and urgent action to mitigate consumers and workers who care for them before April 10th.
The union has joined many other groups seeking delays, including lawmakers who approved the transaction during the budget process last year.
“The bottom line is that she received the governor's words that she could do this with this organization,” Sen. Leroy Comley (D-Queens) told reporters at a press conference last week.
“A lot of people were questioning. I was doubting from the start, but that just shows that we were OK,” Comrie said.
