DOH: Only 1% of DSRIP Funds Used to Fund CBO Initiatives and Innovations
NYAPRS E-News February 1, 2017
The NYS Department of Health disclosed yesterday that only 1% of the over $1 billion that has been afforded to 25 primarily hospital-led Performing Provider Systems across New York has been used to contract with local community based organizations to meet the goals of our Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program, an $8 billion initiative aimed at reducing avoidable hospitalizations by 25 percent over a five-year period.
In fact, in too many instances, CBOs have presented expert and innovative proposals to improve care and reduce costs to ‘high needs’ individuals that have either been discarded or taken over by the PPSs, leading many to consider the DSRIP program a ‘giveaway’ to the hospitals.
These concerns dominated yesterday’s public comment session in Albany before the state Department of Health’s Project Approval and Oversight Panel, including written comments from Christy Parque, president and chief executive of the Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies that “without the PPS leads committing resources to outreach community-based organizations…those community-based organizations best positioned to engage the neediest communities will not be there.”
NYAPRS has long pressed DOH officials to take a stronger role here, most notably at a panel presentation about the value of CBOs to 600 PPS representatives last year, a presentation that was followed by NYS Medicaid Director Jason Helgerson’s call that “CBOs are essential to the success of DSRIP.”
Yet DOH continues to play a hands off role here. “What we have said throughout is that [performing provider systems] are not obligated to distribute the funds,” said Helgerson. “They have flexibility.”
Pressure will continue to mount on both DOH and the PPSs to build on the critical experience and capability of CBOs to best reshape local systems to improve care and reduce costs for millions of New Yorkers with multiple and complex conditions.
Stay tuned for details.