October 2026 Capitol Rally a SUCCESS!
Nearly 200 Health Home Care Managers and CEOs traveled to the Governor's front door at Albany's Capitol on Wednesday (10/7) to make their voices heard regarding the need for an immediate and overdue rate increase and investment in the functioning and successful Care Management program.
Our HH Care Managers—forgotten for the past 8 years—must be included in Governor Hochul's 2027–28 Executive Budget!
The event, jointly coordinated by iHealth, the NYS Care Management Coalition, and the NY Health Home Coalition, aimed to raise Governor Hochul's awareness of the critical need to increase Health Home rates by 15%, enact the Human Service CareForce Wage Enhancement Act, and include Health Home Care Management in a Targeted Inflationary Increase (TII)/COLA at 3.4% CPI-U July 2026 in her proposed SFY 2027–28 Executive Budget.
Along with our own iHealth Executive Director Dr. James G. Schiller and iHealth Board member Daniel Lowy (Chief Strategy Officer at Argus Community), speakers included Jackie Negri (ED of the NYS CM Coalition) and Andrew O'Grady (CEO, MHA of Dutchess County), who shared statistics on the Health Homes and care coordination services that help more than 188,000 adults and children at any given time.
Hira Ruskin (VP at Northwell Health), Rhonda Lieberman (PD at Montefiore UBA), Susan Murray (VP at Blythedale Children's Hospital), and Jodi Saitowitz (CEO at Collaborative for Children & Families), representing major NYS Medicaid-supported medical providers for adults and children with complex conditions, shared the life-saving impact of—and provider dependency on—HH Care/Case Managers with regard to their services. iHealth Board member Nadine Akinyemi was in attendance.
Dr. Schiller of iHealth pressed Governor Hochul to remain true to her State-of-the-State pledge to sustain on-the-ground, community-based programs that identify and connect the most vulnerable, disconnected New Yorkers to care—work our Care Managers are doing NOW and have been doing for almost 30 years.
Our DOH HH Care Managers are the very foundation of the current NY case management model, connecting the disconnected to care and serving as the hub for integrated care across the healthcare network. They keep those with persistent mental health diagnoses connected, independent, and out of the ER; connect them to housing, food, and benefits; and (YES) assist those on Medicaid in remaining certified—all while preventing unnecessary and wasteful Medicaid overutilization.
THANKS TO ALL OUR iHealth MEMBERS WHO ATTENDED—WE MADE UP A LARGE PORTION OF ATTENDEES!
Comments