May 30, 2025
PROVIDER NOTICE: Medicaid Recertification (PHE Unwind) – Action needed in NYC
During the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), New York State (NYS) Medicaid enrollees were not required to complete the usual recertification process to maintain their coverage.
As outlined in the NYS Medicaid Update – February 2025 Volume 41 – Number 2, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 required states to resume Medicaid eligibility redeterminations (referred to as the PHE Unwind). NYS began this process in April 2023, and all recertifications must be completed by December 31, 2025, per federal guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
In New York City (NYC), the recertification process is still underway for individuals who renew Medicaid coverage through the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA).
What’s Happening Now
Efforts are underway to complete renewals and ensure all individuals have gone through a renewal cycle before the end of the year. Medicaid enrollees who have not yet recertified their Medicaid eligibility since the COVID-19 PHE ended will be mailed a letter by the NYC HRA.
- HRA is mailing final Medicaid renewal packets in NYC to cohorts of Medicaid enrollees. The first cohort’s renewal packet was due in April 2025, with Medicaid coverage ending May 31, 2025, if the renewal packet is not submitted or the person is no longer eligible for Medicaid.
- HRA will send renewal packets to a new cohort of Medicaid enrollees each month, with a submission deadline, through the end of 2025.
The NYS Department of Health has requested the Office of Mental Health (OMH) and the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) make behavioral health providers aware of the PHE Unwind Medicaid recertifications process in NYC. Impacted Medicaid enrollees may not be aware they need to recertify if they no longer live at the address HRA sends the final renewal packet to.
What can providers do?
- Check Medicaid eligibility systems such as PSYCKES, eMedNY, or ePACES to identify clients who may have upcoming Medicaid recertification deadlines.
- Talk to clients about the importance of renewing their Medicaid coverage, stressing the importance of completing and returning renewal notices by their due dates. Ask clients if they have received any notices from HRA or know when they typically renew. Maintaining Medicaid enrollment will ensure continuity of services.
- Incorporate this messaging into group sessions, intakes, and appointments.
- Connect individuals to case managers for help completing the recertification process.
- Refer Clients to additional support:
§ HRA Medicaid Helpline (1-888-692-6116),
§ HRA Public Health Insurance website.
By helping clients complete their Medicaid renewal, providers can prevent lapses in coverage and ensure continued access to services.
For OASAS providers, additional questions can be directed to picm@oasas.ny.gov.
For OMH providers, additional questions can be directed to OMH-Managed-Care@omh.ny.gov.
Thank you.
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The article below describes Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s game plan for stopping the House megabill from moving forward ‘as is’ in the Senate. The plan is to stir the pot and leverage Republican infighting using clean-energy credits as the vehicle for increasing chaos and constituent pressure on hardline Senate Republicans. By forcing Senators to vote on various provisions in the House bill during the portion of debate devoted to making amendments, Senators will have to go on the record in favor or against provisions they know their constituents back home (particularly those in red states) need to be continued, or eliminated. Sunshine is often the best disinfectant!
(Politico Inside Congress, 5/30/25)
Chuck Schumer tells us Democrats have a ripe new target in their fight against the megabill: leveraging Republican infighting over whether to eviscerate clean-energy credits.
In an exclusive interview with Lisa Thursday, the Senate minority leader said his caucus is looking to make it politically untenable for Majority Leader John Thune and his members to follow House Republicans in gutting green credits under the Biden-era climate law. Those credits, Schumer points out, have widely benefited red states.
Schumer’s game plan: Needle Republicans already wary of job and investment losses back home to compel Thune to skip the drastic cuts that House GOP leaders included to bring hard-liners along.
How Senate Democrats will do it: Ramp up the public pressure campaign Schumer kick-started Thursday against the backdrop of a rooftop solar field in Manhattan, and force Republicans to take tough votes through eventual vote-a-rama amendments.
“There are a whole number of Republicans, particularly those that have a lot of clean-energy investments in their states, who really didn’t like what the House did,” Schumer told Lisa. “And the question is: Will they be able to put enough pressure on Thune, or even vote [with us] on some amendments?”
Why Schumer sees this as a fruitful avenue for attack: A quartet of GOP senators — Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, John Curtis and Jerry Moran — warned their leadership weeks ago against a “full-scale repeal of current credits.” Tillis has already raised concerns about the House language. Schumer said he’s spoken privately to “a good number of Republican colleagues” who dislike the House’s cuts, but declined to name names.
“The irony here is most of the new solar, wind and battery factories are in red states. And so we want to make it clear … [the rollbacks] are going to be huge problems in their states,” Schumer said.
Democrats may have an unlikely ally in this fight. Elon Musk’s Tesla on Thursday blasted plans to phase out the clean-energy tax credits and terminate most credits for electric vehicles at the end of the year, arguing it would “threaten America’s energy independence and the reliability of our grid.”
But Republicans have a more pressing challenge awaiting in the Senate. Pet policy provisions that House Republicans tucked into the megabill could get ruled out by the Senate parliamentarian for not meeting the Byrd Rule — the requirement that components of a reconciliation package have budgetary impacts. And they could get cut in what’s known as a “Byrd Bath.”
The seven “Byrd droppings” to keep an eye on, per our Jordain Carney this morning: tax-cut accounting, AI regulations, judicial powers, gun regulations, farm bill provisions, Planned Parenthood funds and energy permitting.
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For budget wonks, here’s a link to an important article (below) from PEW Charitable Trusts re: state medicaid costs (and significant growth of state Medicaid programs) before potential federal cuts. Specifically, and to understand the condition of state Medicaid budgets before any federal action, The Pew Charitable Trusts reviewed Medicaid data and spoke with state analysts who track spending on these programs.
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HealthAffairs Forefront, 5/29/2025
HHS Secretary RFK Jr.’s Approach To Addiction Treatment Is Dangerously Flawed
As members of the harm reduction working group of the Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drugs (ATOD) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA), we have concerns about the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) as the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. In general, we share the broad concerns of how RFK will impact the country’s public health (e.g., vaccine misinformation, lack of understanding of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, general inexperience), but we are specifically concerned about his impact on the field of substance use and addiction. (For more on the ATOD section’s position on substance use and addiction treatment, see the APHA/ATOD policy statement.)
With disregard for the evidence, RFK has suggested the following abstinence-focused strategies to address addiction and the current drug crisis (which he still refers to as the opioid epidemic, even the crisis has broadened beyond opioids):
- “Healing farms,” described as abstinence-based programs that combine tough love, peer support, and therapeutic labor
- “Tough love” approaches, like cutting off financial support or contact, that force people using drugs to suffer the consequences of their addiction. Often described as “hitting rock bottom.”
- 12-step programs, faith-based and rigidly anti-medication (also called “mutual help” groups)
RFK has been open about his history of substance use, which began as a means to cope with trauma and progressed to opioid addiction. For him, the path to recovery was through 12-step programs, where he sought a spiritual connection because his “strong sense of willpower” could not overcome his addiction. There is evidence to support the effects of mutual help or 12 step programs on remission for alcohol use disorder. However, the culture of opioid related 12 step programs (i.e., abstinence only, shaming) can put folks at risk for return to chaotic use (i.e., consumption unbound by self-regulation) or overdose. People attending Narcotics Anonymous are strongly encouraged to refuse medications for opioid use disorder and if this advice is not followed, their participation in meetings is restricted. The use of medications for opioid use disorder is the gold standard in treatment and certainly more effective than willpower. It helps folks handle the debilitating withdrawal associated with today’s drug supply and allows them to fully participate in their own lives and in society. The ATOD Harm Reduction Working Group (comprised of about 20 members of the ATOD Section of APHA) supports ALL evidence-based paths to recovery—and this includes medication. RFK’s focus on one particular path—abstinence only—to the exclusion of other evidence-supported paths is troubling and potentially jeopardizes progress.
While RFK indicated during the hearings that he would support the use of medications for addiction treatment, we are concerned that these evidence-based treatments may be de-prioritized at the same moment when there is a broad call for expanded access. FDA-approved and highly successful (i.e., lifesaving) medication treatment exists for Alcohol Use Disorder (naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram), Nicotine Use Disorder (bupropion, varenicline, nicotine products) and Opioid Use Disorder (buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone). The current best practice treatment for Stimulant Use Disorder is contingency management (in which participants are rewarded for abstinence), which is underutilized, but recent rule changes from SAMHSA may improve access to these programs. Medications for Stimulant Use Disorder are under development and hold promise.
Though RFK has not openly denounced harm reduction, his endorsement of “tough love” approaches makes it unlikely that he supports it. Harm reduction is a set of evidence-based and supportive opportunities to help people determine the level of risk they would like to take regarding their substance use and determine how to minimize that level of risk. Contrary to criticisms, harm reduction does not “enable” continued drug use or prevent recovery, any more than promoting seat belt or bicycle helmet use enables recklessness. Harm reduction can be highly individualized but encompasses activities such as syringe exchange, drug checking, overdose education and naloxone distribution, counseling, addiction medication, social services, and linkage to addiction treatment. Harm reduction is a compassionate and humane response to addiction and chaotic substance use. Its goal is to meet people where they are, provide care, increase safety, and link them to evidence-based treatment when requested. Syringe service programs, overdose prevention centers, and the use of overdose reversal medications all save lives.
As a group, we are concerned that RFK will use his position to promote punishment, abstinence only, and 12-step programs as a way to address the current drug crisis. There is no evidence that those strategies will lead to sustained recovery for most people with substance use disorders and addiction, and there IS evidence that they are insufficient or will cause harm. In its policy statement, APHA calls for policy actions that address barriers and foster equitable access to the full continuum of prevention, intervention services, and evidence-based care. Federal, state, and local health authorities should take steps to 1) enhance and improve prevention and treatment programs and policies with special attention to vulnerable and marginalized populations; 2) minimize harm to the public by improving access to MOUD, overdose prevention, and harm reduction; and 3) expand monitoring of patterns of opioid use and related public health and safety outcomes. We urge policymakers, researchers, colleagues, friends, family, and the public to stay vigilant and to promote evidence-based treatment and harm reduction measures for persons who use drugs.
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— NYC Health + Hospitals’ board of directors voted Thursday to approve a $12.3 million contract to build a center for substance use disorder patients at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.
The new RISE Center will house a recovery program, which is relocating from NYC Health + Hospitals/Belvis, and a clinic for pregnant women and families dealing with addiction. Features will include a medication room, acupuncture rooms and an area for child care.