Once-lauded program plagued by service cuts
With all the acrimony amongst politicians these days, there is one concept that just about everyone subscribes to: that government has a responsibility to attend to the needs of the frail elderly and vulnerable young children. It’s easy for politicians to voice concern and compassion, but will the state back it up with tangible action? With the Early Intervention Program, lawmakers have a chance to answer that question.
In the 1990s New York state created the Early Intervention Program to serve our youngest children, from birth to age three: At no cost to families, children who have diagnosed disabilities are given necessary services to address their developmental delays. This program has been a vital lifeline for 70,000 families each year. It has also saved the state and localities untold hundreds of millions of dollars each year in services that would have been required had those disabilities gone untreated. It is smarter and much more cost effective to remediate problems early on.
But our Early Intervention Program, once the envy of the nation, has been allowed to wither.
Today families increasingly have difficulty finding therapists who can serve all the needs of their kids. There are waiting lists and diminished service capacity. The Department of Health acknowledges the problem by noting a shortage of therapists in the
Early Intervention Program. Local governments regularly send out search notices for qualified professionals to serve special-needs children in their counties.
What has happened to this flagship program? The answer is that the state continues to reimburse therapists at a rate that’s essentially unchanged from the program’s inception nearly 30 years ago. Meanwhile, the cost of delivering these services has
more than doubled since the 1990s.
New York has no shortage of physical, occupational and speech therapists. But these skilled, licensed professionals are leaving the Early Intervention Program by the hundreds to work in other settings that offer a more adequate salary. And who can blame them?
According to the Department of Health, there are over 1,800 fewer therapists working in the Early Intervention program today than there were just four years ago. And dozens of service agencies have closed because costs have exceeded
state reimbursement.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposals do nothing to remedy this crisis. She even vetoed a bill that would have studied the problem. Our 70,000 families are the real losers.
If the governor won’t invest in the future of these children, the Legislature must. If not, thousands of infants and toddlers will be without necessary services because of this short-sighted neglect. In the long run, that will inevitably cost the state and local governments more, much more. And it will cause unnecessary misery for so many families. It’s time for lawmakers who say they’re looking out for New Yorkers’ best interests to step up and prove it.