CDPAP UPDATE: The Department of Health insisted Monday that it’s still on target to pull off an overhaul of the state’s $9 billion Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, four weeks from a state-mandated deadline to consolidate the program. The agency said Monday that it has at least started registering 95,000 consumers and 95,000 workers with Public Partnerships LLC, the vendor that will manage the home care program and pay all workers starting on April 1. There are at least 250,000 consumers who need to transfer to the new vendor to continue receiving services next month – a figure that lawmakers and the home care industry say will be nearly impossible for the Health Department to transfer in the time it has left.
HEALTH CENTER PLANS: Nonprofit provider Accelerated Care Inc. is seeking to build a $4.7 million federally qualified health center at a 200-unit residential building being developed in Fort George, according to a certificate-of-need application filed to the Department of Health Friday. The nonprofit is planning to build its health center, which could serve residents of Washington Heights and Inwood, on the first floor and in the cellar of 1 Wadsworth Terrace, a seven-story residence that will seemingly include some apartments for the homeless. The application will be reviewed by the Public Health and Health Planning Council, which reviews health facility construction and changes in ownership.
DRUG MANUFACTURING: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Monday that he’s prepared to move some of the company’s manufacturing plants onto U.S. soil if President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry, Reuters reports. Speaking from the TD Cowen health care conference in Boston, Bourla said that a company with a domestic manufacturing network would fare better in the case that the administration places a 25% tariff on drug imports. “If something happens, we will try to mitigate it by transferring from manufacturing sites outside to the manufacturing sites here,” Bourla said, noting that Pfizer has a dozen manufacturing sites and distribution centers in the U.S. The news comes after David Ricks, CEO of Eli Lilly, said last week that his company would invest $27 billion to create four manufacturing sites nationwide.
