§ 4015. Pilot program for all-inclusive care for children. 1. The
commissioner is hereby authorized to establish a pilot program for
all-inclusive care for children. Such program, subject to the rules and
regulations of the commissioner, shall consist of comprehensive hospice
and palliative care services for children with life-limiting illnesses
that addresses the medical, psychosocial and spiritual aspects of care
and allows such children to be cared for at home rather than in an
institutional setting. Such services shall be provided by a licensed,
certified hospice working jointly with a certified home health agency,
or a certified home health agency working jointly with a licensed,
certified hospice to assure the provision of services which are an
enhancement of either the certified home health agency or hospice alone,
and shall include hospice services as well as related expressive
therapies such as art, play or music therapy in addition to services of
a child life specialist, and opportunities for respite care.

2. "A child with a life threatening illness" shall mean a child
eligible for medical assistance under article five of the social
services law, who under the age of eighteen is diagnosed with an illness
that places the child at substantial risk of dying before the age of
twenty-one where the child can, with appropriate services be cared for
at an alternative to institutional care.

3. Qualified agencies providing services under this section to a child
shall be reimbursed under medical assistance under article five of the
social services law, at a per diem rate for each day the child is
enrolled in a program. To ensure the alienability of needed services to
these children, reimbursement shall be provided only to those agencies
having satisfied conditions of the department including satisfactory
training in pediatric palliative care.

4. Certified hospice programs shall be allowed to waive the admission
criteria requiring certification of "a terminal illness with prognosis
of six months or less" as well as the requirement for families to forgo
curative treatment for children qualifying for this program receiving
care from an approved site.

5. All home care and other medical assistance under article five of
the social services law otherwise authorized for the child, shall
continue without interruption. The pilot program for all-inclusive care
for children is not intended to supersede any program already in place.

6. The locations of the providers under the pilot program for
all-inclusive care shall be geographically disbursed throughout the
state and approved by the commissioner.

7. The commissioner shall require each provider under the pilot
program for all-inclusive care for children to submit an annual report,
which shall include data analyzing the cost and efficiency of care
provided under such program. On or before December thirty-first, two
thousand eight, the commissioner shall submit a report to the governor,
the temporary president of the senate and the speaker of the assembly
analyzing the cost and efficiency of the pilot program.