New York State
Occupational Therapy Association

1/20/12.  This is information directly from the Governor’s budget briefing book. As bill language from the Article VII program bills become available NYSOTA will forward that information.

Reform Early Intervention Program
The EI program provides a comprehensive array of therapeutic and support services to children under the age of three with confirmed disabilities (i.e., autism, cerebral palsy) or developmental delays. The program serves approximately 72,000 children annually and is jointly financed by Federal, State and local governments.
 

The Executive Budget recommends a series of program modifications, without impacting services that provide significant fiscal and administrative mandate relief to counties and generate cumulative local savings totaling $99 million over five years. These proposals would:

• Expand Insurance Coverage. Require commercial health insurance to include EI service providers in their networks. 

• Centralize Fiscal Oversight. The State will centralize fiscal administration of the EI program through a fiscal intermediary contract. Counties will be relieved of responsibility for contracting with EI providers, administering provider payments and seeking third party reimbursement. 

• Reduce Local Costs. Counties will immediately benefit from a reduction in their share of EI program costs. State savings will also be applied to improving the timeliness of State reimbursement of local program costs.

Preschool Special Education
New York State offers extensive services to its students with disabilities, including services to children before they reach school age. The State’s investment in Preschool Special
Education has doubled over the past ten-years to a projected State cost of $1.1 billion for the upcoming school year. The Executive Budget proposes several changes to both
rationalize the existing Preschool Special Education financing system and eliminate potential conflicts of interest.

• Rationalizing the Current Finance System. School districts, while making most programmatic decisions, do not share in the costs of preschool special education, which
  are paid by the State and counties with 59.5 percent and 40.5 percent shares, respectively.

Without a fiduciary interest in the program, school districts may have little incentive to see that services are provided appropriately and efficiently. To address this disconnect
and to eliminate potential conflicts of interest, the Executive Budget proposes to:

• Apportion all growth above each county’s share of 2011-12 school year costs equally to school districts, the State, and the county; 

• Increase the role of counties when providers request an exception to existing payment rates; 

• Require justification when a distant provider is chosen over closer, suitable providers; and

• Prohibiting, in most cases, children being evaluated by the same agency that provides the child educational services or by an evaluator with a less-than-arms-length
  relationship to the agency, to avoid the inherent potential for conflict of interest in these relationships.