A stronger future for consumer-directed care

Nearly three decades ago, Angels in Your Home was founded with a mission to deliver top-notch home care and skilled nursing services to Rochester and its surrounding rural areas. Inspired by our founder’s experience in elderly care, we have grown from a small family business into one of Western New York’s fastest-growing companies and a state leader in facilitating self-directed care.

At every stage, our work has been guided by a simple principle: to help seniors and people with disabilities live independently, comfortably, and with dignity in their own homes. One of the most important tools for making that happen is the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program. This Medicaid program allows recipients to hire and manage caregivers of their choice—often family members or friends—so that care comes from familiar, trusted hands. But for the program to work, it requires a reliable and streamlined process for making sure that consumers and caregivers (called personal assistants in CDPAP) have all the resources they need.

That’s why we’ve strongly supported New York’s transition of CDPAP from 600 fiscal intermediaries to a single statewide fiscal intermediary, which manages that exact process. A unified system makes our work more efficient, enables better outcomes for consumers, and ensures personal assistants receive the pay, benefits, and support they deserve. Even more importantly, the transition to Public Partnerships LLC as the sole FI has brought clearer processes and stronger support for PAs and consumers.

From the very beginning of this transition, our partnership with PPL has been outstanding. Their attention to detail, quick response times, and commitment to education for consumers and caregivers alike have made them an invaluable ally. Together, we’ve built a collaborative relationship focused on understanding new processes and supporting daily operations, so families experience as little disruption as possible.

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The benefits of this new system and the team behind it are innovative, efficient, and deeply personal. PPL’s centralized timesheet system gives consumers complete control over approving hours and managing their care, ensuring accuracy, transparency, and compliance while avoiding the confusion that was prevalent under the old multi-FI system.

The benefits of the single FI model go beyond just simpler time sheets and paperwork: With PPL, full-time PAs now have access to benefits like health insurance, holiday pay, and 401(k)s, which was inconsistent and not guaranteed under the old system.

All of these improvements have alleviated administrative headaches, allowing everyone to focus more on what matters: providing the best care to seniors and individuals with disabilities. Angels In Your Home has always stood apart for recognizing that care should be personal rather than transactional, which is why we ensure the same relationship manager guides our consumers and their PAs from start to finish. It’s important to see those same values reflected in the partners we work with.

Beyond improvements to day-to-day operations, PPL is offering something even more important: sustainability. By streamlining logistics, creating consistent statewide standards, and lowering administrative costs, PPL has helped ensure CDPAP can meet rising demand without sacrificing quality or choice. That matters for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who rely on a program that was previously on the brink of collapse. Angels in Your Home has grown from a small, family-run agency into a leader in home care across New York, which means we’ve seen firsthand how CDPAP has grown over the last decade. The move to a single FI supports that growth, for both our business and the entire program, giving us a stable foundation to continue serving those who depend on self-directed care.

Our values remain the same as they were when we opened our doors: compassion, respect, and a dedication to enhancing the well-being of every person we serve. PPL reflects those same values, offering people the freedom to choose who cares for them and the dignity of living life on their own terms. With their new stewardship and partnerships with local family-run businesses like ours, the program is now on a stronger foundation than ever before.

At Angels in Your Home, we celebrate each time a new consumer is enrolled in CDPAP. We are proud to play our part in building a better future for self-directed care in Rochester and across the state so that anyone can take advantage of this life-changing program. We can and will ensure that CDPAP continues to empower consumers, support caregivers, and let New Yorkers spend more time where they most want to be: home.

Jon Wegman is CEO of Angels in Your Home, a Rochester-based home care service provider and CDPAP facilitator.

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