Senate Bill S6902A

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S6902A

SPONSOR: RIVERA
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the public health law, in relation to authorizing a rate
increase for in-person early intervention services

 
PURPOSE:

To authorize an 11% increase in reimbursement rates for in-person early
intervention services

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends section 2557 of the Public Health Law to authorize an
11 percent increase in rates for approved costs for early intervention
services rendered on or after July 1, 2024.

Section 2 provides the effective date.

 
              

JUSTIFICATION:

The Early Intervention (El) Program serves 70,000 developmentally and
learning disabled infants and toddlers, from birth to age three. The
program has not had a general rate increase in its reimbursement for
services in over two decades. The El rates in 2023 are actually less
than they were in 2009. This in spite of ever rising costs and galloping
inflation these past few years. Since 2019, over 2,500 therapists have
left the El program because of insufficient rates of pay and over five
dozen service agencies have closed because of inadequate revenue. Chil-
dren who need El services are detrimentally impacted by this attrition.

On February 28, 2023, the State Comptroller issued an Audit Report on
the El program (Report 2021-S-25), that found a majority of El eligible
children were not able to receive all the services that their evalu-
ations called for. Moreover, over a quarter of the children had signif-
icant delays in the start of their services and 3,000 eligible children
received no services at all. Most of this is due to the shortages of
therapists because of insufficient rates. The report indicated that
minority communities suffered the most.  Without this 11% rate increase
(at a minimum), the El program will not be able to attract or retain the
number of skilled therapists needed to serve all of the children in
need. Many of these unserved or underserved children will take their
unremediated disabilities into the public school system and need both
preschool special education services and school age special education
services, the cost of which far exceeds the cost of El services.

Without this 11% rate increase, the program will continue to descend
into crisis and be unable to serve thousands of families with small
children for whom El is an essential service

 
LEGISLATIVE STORY:

New bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

To be determined.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
Immediately.