October 23, 2021

Attached is a Quarterly Report Narrative dated Oct 18.  The Report was recently posted to the DOH website and pertains to the status of various eFMAP Spending Plan proposals submitted by DoH to CMS. Several of the proposals have already been implemented by OASAS and OMH with more to come.

As you may recall, the initial spending plan New York submitted to CMS on July 8, 2021, contained 39 separate proposals across three categories:

1. Supporting and Strengthening the Direct Care Workforce

2. Building HCBS Capacity through Innovations and Systems Transformation; and

3. Investing in Digital Infrastructure

Of the 39 proposals, New York interprets CMS’s letter of August 25, 2021 as approving or partially approving nearly all of these proposals, or components thereof.

Notes:

1) In anticipation of approvals, state agencies have been preparing for implementation of various proposals that may not have been formally approved by CMS yet.  Remember:  The timeline for NYS to get the money out the door upon approval of these proposals is quite short.

2) The Appendix Section of the Report is broken into 3 categories.  Page 6 of Appendix C discusses the BHCC Infrastructure proposal and it conforms with recent information I shared with BHCC/IPA leads regarding DoH having recently responded to a question from CMS as to whether HCBS beneficiaries will benefit from the proposed use for these funds.  Upon receiving this question from CMS, DoH attested that the funds would benefit New Yorkers receiving HCBS. It now appears the state is awaiting a final response from CMS regarding this specific proposal. Saturday Update:  I just spoke to Bob Myers who told me that, as far as he knows, the proposal has not yet been formally approved.

Remember:  This process is fluid.  Status of various proposals discussed in this document could have changed since it was posted online.