The company tasked with consolidating a popular Medicaid home care program is going full steam ahead. Public Partnerships LLC — a financial services company tapped by the Hochul administration to oversee the state’s $9 billion consumer-directed personal assistance program — faces an April 1 deadline to transition about 250,000 enrollees and their in-home assistants to its system. The company has already started laying the groundwork, hiring 1,200 New York-based employees and enlisting two dozen subcontractors to work on the whopping transition effort. The transition itself is slated to kick off on Jan. 6, starting the clock for personal assistants to complete a host of trainings and forms. CDPAP participants will have until March 28 to make the change, either by calling PPL directly or visiting the company’s website. Post-transition, consumers will use the company’s app to submit timesheets, and personal assistants will receive their paychecks and benefits from PPL. PPL executives say they will offer personal assistants "competitive” compensation and benefits based on the consumer’s geographic region, but it’s not yet clear what those are. More information will be provided starting in January, according to the company. IN OTHER NEWS: — New Yorkers suffering “extraordinary” job-related stress now have an easier pathway to file for workers’ compensation, thanks to a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday. The legislation, which was sponsored by state Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Karines Reyes, enables any worker in the state to file a claim for post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder or major depressive disorder arising from an on-the-job incident. Previously, the state Workers Compensation Board could bar such claims when the stress was deemed “not greater than that which usually occurs in the normal work environment” — a standard that state lawmakers nixed in 2017 for first responders. “It is time for our state to recognize that productivity requires the safety and security of the mind, equal to that of the body,” Reyes said in a statement. “This new law will ensure that our state’s social safety net addresses the challenges that employees face in the 21st Century economy.” MAKING ROUNDS: — Jorge Rivera-Agosto was appointed special adviser to the New York state Medicaid director. He previously served as the state Senate’s assistant deputy counsel for health, mental health, and insurance. — Thomas Stokes was named chief financial officer and vice president for finance of Weill Cornell Medicine, after serving in those roles in an interim capacity since October 2023. — Hospital for Special Surgery appointed Christopher Dunleavy as executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective Jan. 2. Current CFO Stacey Malakoff, who is retiring, will support the transition as senior adviser until Dec. 31, 2025. GOT TIPS? Send story ideas and feedback to Maya Kaufman at mkaufman@politico.com and Katelyn Cordero at kcordero@politico.com.
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