FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 2, 2025
Contact: Santino R. Thomas
(518) 949-4809 | [email protected]
Opinion from Erica Schwartz, Associate Executive Director at St. Catherine’s Center for Children
With State budget negotiations ongoing, now is the time to address the lack of funding for Health Home Care Management programs throughout New York. It has been years since the State approved an increase in funding for these essential programs, but what are they?
Health Home Care Management programs, like the one at St. Catherine’s Center for Children, work to improve the health and well-being of Medicaid-eligible children and families dealing with chronic health issues. When issues like asthma, diabetes, a mental health diagnosis, developmental or neurological conditions or complex traumas go untreated for years, it creates larger issues that often result in costly emergency room visits and inpatient hospitalizations.
Unfortunately, many individuals don’t receive care for issues like these due to the significant social barriers they face, including joblessness, lack of transportation, lack of childcare and food insecurity. Health Home Care Management programs help clients tackle these issues while identifying areas of care that clients are lacking. Care Managers increase clients’ connectivity to the healthcare system to improve their health before it reaches a critical point.
Access to primary care physicians, health and nutrition services, smoking cessation programs or visits with mental health experts are all ways of keeping people healthy while keeping Medicaid costs down. That is what Health Home Care Management programs do. They improve the overall health and well-being of the community, starting early with children and parents, to have a greater impact and save lives all while saving taxpayers money.
However, programs like these continue to be in jeopardy every year the State refuses to increase their funding. As the cost of living continues to rise, salaries for Health Home Care Managers are not keeping pace, forcing them to look for other jobs. This lack of proper funding and an adequately paid workforce is causing the contraction of Health Home Care Management programs.
If these programs – currently benefitting Medicaid-eligible children and families with chronic health issues – are forced into non-existence, overall community health will suffer, emergency room visits and hospitalizations will increase and Medicaid costs will rise. New York State and its taxpayers simply cannot afford this.
The New York State Senate has included Health Home Care Management in its one-house budget bill, but we need the Assembly and the governor to get on board so this much needed funding is included in the final enacted budget.
Proper funding of Health Home Care Management programs will save lives, save taxpayer dollars by decreasing Medicaid costs, and provide hard working human services staff with adequate pay. This should be a no-brainer for our elected officials.
The willingness of St. Catherine’s Center for Children to embrace change and develop new services is, and will remain, our guiding philosophy as we support human service needs, throughout the region, by providing a comprehensive range of services designed to offer hope, foster growth and improve the lives of the children, families and adults we serve. For more information, http://www.st-cath.org.
###
