Since the beginning of 2025, WiAHC’s lobbyists have been aggressively advocating to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate for home health agency-based nurses from $96.96 per visit to $117.86 per visit, which is 70 percent of the Medicare home health reimbursement rate. Such a rate increase would bring our state in line with the reimbursement rates in other Midwest states. With your help as WiAHC members, we are pleased to inform you that this increase was included in the Fiscal Year 2025-2027 state budget that Governor Tony Evers (D) signed into law on July 3!

More specifically, this budget law provides $294,300 in FY2025-2026 and $588,600 in FY2026-2027 to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate for home visits performed by licensed practical nurses or registered nurses employed by home health agencies, effective January 1, 2026. Please note that per the funding levels provided above, it appears that this requested rate increase will be fully implemented in the second year of the biennial budget – in FY2026-2027.

In addition to WiAHC’s gratitude to Governor Evers and the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance, our organization greatly appreciates the leadership of both Senator Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton), a nurse practitioner, and Representative Clint Moses (R-Menomonie), a chiropractor. Both of these legislators formally submitted this rate increase request to the Joint Committee on Finance for consideration.