The Center for Disability Services is stopping psychiatric care for patients at the end of December, leaving hundreds without a provider going into 2026. This comes after a fight lasting over a year to prevent it from happening.<\/p>\n
This is the first time the Center has ever ended one of its services. CEO Gregory Sorrentino says they did everything they could to find a solution, including meeting with elected officials, but at the end of the day, he says they could not fix the underlying issue\u2014a problem being felt across the nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently we have one staff person for over 1,100 patients,\u201d said Sorrentino.<\/p>\n
He explained that the Center once had four providers, but after more than a year of searching, they could not hire new replacements due to Medicaid reimbursement rates that have not been updated in almost two decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are operating with an 18-year-old reimbursement rate, which makes it very difficult to compete and recruit,\u201d said Sorrentino.<\/p>\n
According to Sorrentino, a provider\u2019s salary under the current Medicaid rates would be an estimated 25 percent less compared to their competitors. Assemblymember Angelo Santabarbara says these low rates directly harm the disabled community that relies on Medicaid benefits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are families affected by disability that are impacted directly. They’re being impacted right now. This cannot wait. It has to be a top issue,\u201d said Santabarbara.<\/p>\n
The Center notified patients three months in advance that psychiatric services were ending. Now, about 600 patients are scrambling to find coverage. Sorrentino says the Center is committed to placing patients into care even after the deadline passes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we were trying to do is make sure that we had the most time to be able to get people into a good spot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Santabarbara says this puts a strain on other providers in the Capital Region since only a few accept Medicaid\u2014and even fewer are accepting new patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other sectors now, other areas that are going to get overloaded because people are going to go somewhere seeking services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sorrentino said the Center for Disability Services is open to restarting psychiatric care, but the only way that can happen is if Medicaid reimbursement rates are updated. For now, he says no other services are being affected at the Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Center for Disability Services is stopping psychiatric care for patients at the end of December, leaving hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-319706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}