December 17, 2025
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PUBLIC NOTICE: Temporary OMH MORATORIUM ON LICENSES FOR CFTSS PROVIDERS Please see the attached PUBLIC NOTICE that one of our member agencies received and shared with me yesterday. As follow up, I will be speaking with leaders at OMH today, and I will call one of the lead attorneys at The Children’s Rights legal firm that sued OMH / NYS on behalf of 4 NYS youth who could not access HCBS services, leading to a recently settled class action lawsuit in which OMH and NYS must now make significant revisions and investments in several areas of the children’s mental health system, as part of the settlement agreement. See attached. Obviously our concern with this notice begins with the barrier to care this will create for children/youth/families who need these services but where there isn’t a sufficient number of providers available to provide them. ——————– YOUTH SUICIDE RATES IN NYS Earlier this year, the NYS Council began posting a recently released statistic about youth suicide rates in New York that we stumbled over in October. The Center for Disease Control in Washington had published information about youth suicide rates and in NYS, the youth suicide rate increased between 2014-2024 by about 10%. We immediately alerted all branches of government and given the fact that these dates directly coincide with the implementation of Medicaid managed care for children, youth and families, we began posting about this as a part of our ongoing campaign to carve out our services. The statistic and our concern over risiing youth suicide rates has appeared repeatedly in our posts on X/Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and in several news stories. Our communications consultants post the cold hard facts about the disaster that is managed care – for Medicaid members with these benefits – online everyday on X/Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook. |
| A new audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli finds that New York counties aren’t receiving the data needed to effectively prevent suicides. The state has had a stagnant suicide rate from 2017 through 2023, with racial and gender disparities within different groups, according to the report shared with POLITICO.The state’s suicide prevention task force, made up of mental health experts from across the state, created 27 recommendations aimed at curbing the state’s growing suicide rates. DiNapoli said the state Office of Mental Health has made progress in addressing the recommendations shared by the task force, but there is more work to be done.Audit findings: The report found that 80 percent of counties said they don’t have access to timely data regarding suicide-related hospitalizations, and 66 percent reported they did not have access to timeline crisis hotline data. Some local officials said they have waited months or years for data that could identify trends that could help save lives.The report also found that key demographic data such as race, ethnicity, veteran status and gender identity were incomplete. DiNapoli also pointed out a lack of recordkeeping of the task force meetings.“Every life lost to suicide is a devastating tragedy for families and communities,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “The Office of Mental Health could improve efforts to implement the recommendations made by the New York State Suicide Prevention Task Force to ensure timely and accurate data is shared with counties. With stronger monitoring and coordination, New York can save lives and better protect people in crisis.”DiNapoli is recommending that OMH develop and implement monitoring and documentation of the task force’s work, and to improve its system for data collection and sharing.The agency agreed to improve its system and implement the recommendations outlined by the Department of Health. |
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Medical Aid in Dying
Later today Governor Hochul will announce that she intends to sign a Medicaid Aid in Dying bill for NYS. A just released Press Release from the Governor states the following regarding her decision to sign the bill after making changes to the language that were apparently agreed to by the bill sponsors after a long period of negotiations. I’m sharing this information with NYS Council members given the numbers of New Yorkers who have expressed concern over passage of this law – and especially those with disabilities.
“I proposed additional guardrails that also protect family members, caregivers and doctors, and I am pleased that the bill’s sponsors and legislative leaders agreed to include them in the bill I will ultimately sign once the Legislature returns to Albany and approves the amended language.
These guardrails address the concerns of some who fear that vulnerable populations, including those with disabilities or the elderly, will be pressured into a decision they would not have made on their own. Confirmation from a medical doctor that the individual truly had less than six months to live, and from a psychologist or psychiatrist that the patient is capable of making the decision and not under duress, will now be required.
There will be a mandatory five-day waiting period to provide the patient the chance to change their mind, and both a written and recorded oral request to confirm free will is present, with anyone who may benefit financially disqualified from being a witness or interpreter.
Outpatient facilities associated with religious hospitals may elect not to offer medical aid in dying, and the effective date of the bill has been extended to ensure time for regulations and training.
Finally, this is a right afforded to New Yorkers only.”
Hochul agrees to sign Medical Aid in Dying bill
By Rebecca C. Lewis | December 16, 2025 09:17 PM ET,
City & State
After months of negotiations over a controversial measure that would permit doctors to help some terminally ill patients end their lives, sources told City & State that Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to announce a deal to sign it on Wednesday.
Lawmakers passed the Medical Aid in Dying Act for the first time earlier this year. Sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member Amy Paulin, the bill would allow people with six months or fewer to live to request access to a cocktail of drugs that would end their life. Advocates for the measure have said it is a matter of compassion for terminally ill New Yorkers to end their lives on their own terms. But opponents, including some disability advocates and religious groups, consider it an immoral and dangerous law to implement.
Both sides have lobbied Hochul intensely over the bill since it passed and she has not publicly indicated her position. But sources familiar with the plans said that Hochul will announce that she and legislative leaders have reached a compromise for her to sign it. The governor’s public schedule released Tuesday night has her making a “health care announcement” in New York City at 3 p.m. It’s there that Hochul is expected to detail the deal, although she is not expected to sign the measure just yet.
According to the sources, Hochul got several changes that she had pushed for in negotiations. Gothamist reported earlier this month that Hochul had asked that the law include a requirement for patients to submit a video request for the life-ending medication, a waiting period to receive the drugs and for patients to receive a mental health exam beforehand. Politico New York reported earlier Tuesday that amendments included in order for Hochul to sign the bill will be slightly weaker than she initially pushed for.
A couple of polls from earlier this year found that a majority of New Yorkers supported the measure, but it has been fiercely opposed by religious groups.
The Assembly passed the bill 81-67 for the first time in April after hours of debate, with the state Senate following in June.
A spokesperson for the governor declined to comment.