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About CDPA

Caring younger woman with older woman in wheelchair

What is Consumer Directed Personal Assistance (CDPA)?

Consumer Directed Personal Assistance allows Medicaid recipients in need of personal care, home health and nursing services to recruit, hire, train, supervise and terminate their own personal assistants. Under CDPA, people with long-standing illnesses or disabilities have much greater control and freedom over their own care than under traditional home care services. They are able to hire friends or loved ones to work for them, thus eliminating potential stress from strangers in the home or language/cultural barrier issues. CDPA consumers allocate weekly hours on a flexible day-to-day basis, rather than following a daily schedule of hours set by a third party. The program ultimately provides consumers with controls that many take for granted.

Who Can Use the Program?

To be eligible for CDPA, an individual must:

  • Be Medicaid eligible;
  • Be eligible for home care services, personal care services, or private duty nursing;
  • Require some or total assistance with one or more home care, personal care, or skilled nursing service;
  • Have a stable medical condition; and
  • Be self-directing or have a designated representative who is willing and competent to assume the roles and responsibilities that go with the program.

The definition of a self-directing consumer is:

“a consumer who is capable of making choices regarding the consumer’s activities of daily living and the type, quality and management of his or her consumer directed personal assistance; understands the impact of these choices; and assumes responsibility for the results of these choices.”  (10 NYCRR 505.28(b)(9))

Since the consumer assumes employer responsibilities, (to recruit, hire, train, supervise and terminate) s/he must be capable off performing these duties.  Directing the personal assistant and completing required paperwork are core competencies.

In counties where cases are authorized by the local department of social services, county caseworkers and nurses assess each individual for his/her CDPA eligibility.  In counties where mandatory managed care and managed long term care have been implemented, case workers and nurses from the consumer’s plan assume these responsibilities.