CDPAP, agency home care, and family caregivers in New York City

New York City's five boroughs are five counties. The Bronx is Bronx County, Brooklyn is Kings County, Manhattan is New York County, Queens is Queens County, and Staten Island is Richmond County. Medicaid paperwork uses the county name, and a statewide phone line will ask for it.

Unlike the other 57 counties, where a county Department of Social Services runs Medicaid, the city's Medicaid is administered citywide by the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA). There is no Bronx Medicaid office phone line or Queens Medicaid office phone line to hunt for. The HRA Medicaid Helpline serves all five boroughs, and HRA's Home Care Services Program handles fee-for-service personal care and CDPAP cases through its Home Care CASA offices, reached through the DSS OneNumber. People enrolled in a Managed Long Term Care plan work with the plan for authorizations, not with HRA.

The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) is a New York State Medicaid program that lets a Medicaid member who is eligible for home care choose, hire, train, and supervise their own personal assistant, including a friend or family member, as long as that person is not the member's spouse, designated representative, or the parent of a consumer under 21. Since 2025 there is one statewide fiscal intermediary for every CDPAP consumer in the state, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), designated by the New York State Department of Health. That is true in Riverdale, in Brighton Beach, and on the South Shore of Staten Island; nothing about the fiscal intermediary changes by borough.

Fair hearings are statewide too. When Medicaid home care hours are reduced or ended, the appeal goes through the plan's internal appeal (for managed care members) and then the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) fair hearing system, which serves every county. The borough you live in changes where the hearing is physically held, not your rights.

This is an educational site. It is not a government agency, a home care agency, a fiscal intermediary, a trust, or a law firm, and it does not recommend any of them. Nothing here is an eligibility decision. If you leave your email for the caregiver checklist, it is held and used only to send that checklist; it is not passed to any provider.