Albany, NY (January 10, 2026) – New York’s flagship Medicaid home-care program is undergoing a sweeping overhaul after investigators concluded that scammers, middlemen, and lax oversight drained more than $1.2 billion in public funds over several years.
The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), launched in the 1990s, was created to let disabled and elderly New Yorkers hire relatives, friends, or trusted aides instead of relying on traditional agencies. As enrollment surged, however, oversight did not keep pace. Reviews by state and federal authorities uncovered extensive abuse: fabricated timesheets, payments for services never rendered, and caregivers billing implausibly long shifts across multiple patients.
One case cited by investigators involved a man who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars over six years for relatives supposedly caring for his mother in Manhattan while she was actually living overseas. In other schemes, companies known as “fiscal intermediaries” charged patients steep monthly administrative fees while performing little more than basic payroll processing…