For the last several years, WiAHC has been advocating to eliminate an outdated state regulation relating to professional advisory bodies for home health care agencies. WiAHC has been advocating for this change since professional advisory committees were removed from federal regulations in 2017, as home health agencies are already overseen by a governing body pursuant to federal regulations.  In addition, home health agencies are also overseen by governing bodies in Wisconsin regulations.  In 2017, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also put in place federal regulations requiring home health agencies to implement ongoing quality assessment and performance improvement (QAPI) programs.  Essentially, CMS replaced professional advisory committees in federal regulations with the creation of the QAPI program.

In January 2023, WiAHC formally requested that the state Department of Health Services (DHS) eliminate professional advisory bodies for home health care agencies in the agency’s biennial rules review – a process by which DHS makes technical changes and updates to existing state regulations. As DHS included this change in their biennial rules review, WiAHC noted in a prior Madison update that we submitted formal testimony to DHS on September 26 in support of this change. In addition, one of WiAHC’s Madison lobbyists testified at the DHS September 26 virtual hearing in support of this change.

The next step in the state regulatory process is for the various legislative committees to review the broader biennial rules review proposal, which includes the provision removing home health agency professional advisory bodies. As this is written, several of those committees are reviewing this broader proposal. If this process remains on schedule, we anticipate that this state regulatory change will likely be complete by mid-2026.