A resolution effort is underway by the NYC Human Resources Administration's Medical Assistance Program (HRA NMAP) which will utilize conferencing to reduce the need for issues to come to hearing. This office is assisting in this effort by canvassing appellants who have a hearing request pending to determine if their needs might be best served by a conference with the HRA NMAP office, or whether they wish to continue to pursue a hearing. Scripted letters (a copy of which is attached to this transmittal) have been sent to a sample of fair hearing appellants.
The letter includes a tear-off section which allows the client to choose to attend a conference with the agency, withdraw the fair hearing request, or proceed with the fair hearing. The tear-off section should be returned by the appellant to Ms. Helen Greif from the Fair Hearing Division/Conference Unit of the Human Resources Administration's Medical Assistance Program, who will in turn provide these forms to Evelyn Cobien at our 330 West 34th Street site. Until such time as the HRA NMAP office forwards these returned tear-off sections to the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH), the hearing request will continue to be processed for scheduling. If the matter is resolved prior to scheduling, the hearing requests can be withdrawn. Any withdrawals processed in conjunction with this project will be identified in the comments as withdrawn pursuant to the conferencing project, CONF.
Initially, this procedure will be tested on a small number of clients. During the start-up period, any fair hearing activity related to withdrawing the fair hearing request will be monitored and processed by Albany Intake staff. At such time as the volume warrants, NYC Calendar Management Unit staff at both 80 Centre Street and 330 West 34th Street may be more directly involved in processing these resolutions.
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