As we look back over the 2023-2024 state legislative session, we are grateful for the strong advocacy efforts of WiAHC in Madison.  With your help, WiAHC helped accomplish a number of priorities that benefit home health care agencies and the patients we serve:

• The following funding items supported by WiAHC were included in the state’s FY2023-FY2025 enacted budget:
• State funding to continue the federally funded Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) 5.0 percent Medicaid reimbursement rate increase through June 30, 2025.  This rate increase was initially funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). 
• Maintained $5 million in annual funding for the nurse educators’ program. 
• WiAHC also supported legislation – Senate Bill 476 – that codified existing state regulations allowing health care providers that do not have a physical location in Wisconsin to be certified as a Medicaid provider in order to treat patients who are Medicaid beneficiaries via telehealth as long as the provider is licensed in the state and is in good standing with the relevant occupational licensing board.  Governor Evers signed this bill on March 22, 2024. 

We look forward to continuing our strong working relationship with WiAHC as the 2025-2026 state legislative session begins.

From all of us at Hoven Consulting, we would like to wish all of you and your families a very happy and healthy holiday season! 

In early December, the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) unveiled a new streamlined Medicaid process for new clinicians.  In particular, the process captures data that medical professionals enter into the DSPS system when applying for an initial medical credential and automatically and securely imports that into the system that registers and validates new clinicians with the state’s Medicaid program.  Prior to this process change, new clinicians would have to manually enter required information in order to register as a Medicaid provider – much of which is duplicative to what is manually entered when applying for an initial health care credential. 

On December 4, 2024, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) and Senate Democratic Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) announced the members of the powerful budget-writing Joint Committee on Finance for the 2025-2026 legislative session.

The following Republican senators will be members of this committee:

• Senator Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), Co-Chair
• Senator Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point), Vice Chair
• Senator Eric Wimberger (R-Green Bay)
• Senator Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin)*
• Senator Romaine Quinn (R-Cameron)*
• Senator Rob Stafsholt (R-New Richmond)*

The following Democratic senators will be members of this committee:

• Senator LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), Ranking Member
• Senator Kelda Roys (D-Madison)

* Indicates new committee member.

On December 11, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced the following Republican representatives will take the following positions on this committee:

• Representative Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), Co-Chair
• Representative Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc), Vice Chair

On December 18, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) announced the following Republican representative will join this committee:

• Representative Karen Hurd (R-Withee)

NOTE:  As of December 18, 2024, Assembly Republican and Democratic leaders have not yet announced their remaining members of the Joint Committee on Finance.

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) has announced that the agency will hold its second annual Wisconsin Harm Reduction Conference at the Chula Vista Resort in the Wisconsin Dells on July 16-17 of next year.  Various health professionals are invited to attend, including local and tribal health department staff, first responders, AIDS/HIV care workers, among others.  Those who are interested may also attend virtually. 

For more information on this conference, please go to the DHS website. 

In recent weeks, DHS launched a new online system to help alert health professionals regarding overdoses in our state’s communities.  The new system is called the Wisconsin Suspected Overdose Alerts for Rapid Response (WiSOARR).  According to the DHS website, “Authorized access to WiSOARR is available to professionals at approved organizations providing services across the continuum of care in substance use, from primary prevention to treatment and harm reduction.”

If you would like to obtain access to WiSOARR for your organization, or would like more information about this system, please visit the DHS website. 

Earlier this month, the WiAHC Legislative Committee approved the association’s policy agenda for the 2025-2026 state legislative session.  The priorities are as follows:

• Increase the physical and occupational therapist workforce in rural Wisconsin by creating a grant- based incentive program and grow/strengthen Wisconsin’s home health care workforce generally.

• Support efforts to create a state Palliative Care Council.

• Promote harmonization of federal and state home health care regulations by eliminating “professional advisory bodies” in state regulations, while retaining patient protections.

• Work with the state Department of Health Services to continuously improve the Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) program.

• Promote increased utilization of home health care in Wisconsin.

On October 22, WiAHC Madison lobbyist Nathan Butzlaff presented a Champion of Home Health Care award to state Representative Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam).  This award, which WiAHC presents to state legislators at the end of every two-year legislative session, was presented to Rep. Born in his capacity as Assembly Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Finance.  As a co-chair, he helped lead the approval of the Fiscal Year 2023-2025 state budget that included a continuation of the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) five percent increase from April 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025.  This continuation of funds has directly benefited home health agencies statewide.   

WiAHC Madison lobbyists Tim Hoven and Nathan Butzlaff previously presented the other Champion of Home Health Care award to state Senator Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), the Senate co-chair of the Joint Committee on Finance, as he also helped lead the approval of the budget that includes the funding described above.

The WiAHC-WiHPCA Joint Fall Conference was a great event, one that provided home health care and hospice professionals with fantastic educational content and networking opportunities. Public policy and legislative issues were also a topic of discussion at the conference, which was sparked by State Representative Dave  Maxey (R-New Berlin) who helped open the conference that was held near his district in Brookfield, WI. In addition to providing brief comments before the full conference, Rep. Maxey had a long discission with several members regarding the policies important to both WiAHC and WiHPCA. Our Government Affairs Team will certainly be working with Rep. Maxey during the 2025-26 legislative session.

The results of the November 5 general election once again show how Wisconsin is indeed a purple state.  While Wisconsinites narrowly voted to elect former President Donald Trump, a Republican, to the Presidency, our state’s voters also re-elected Democrat Tammy Baldwin to the U.S. Senate.  This is a situation that has not occurred in Wisconsin in over half a century. 

In the State Assembly and Senate, the current Republican majorities lost a total of 14 seats – 10 in the Assembly and 4 in the Senate.  It was expected that Republicans would lose seats in both chambers of the Legislature, but not enough to lose the majority – which is what happened.  This was due to the fact that new legislative districts were put in place earlier this year. 

For a full list of newly-elected state legislators, including photos and a very brief background on each individual, please visit the WisPolitics website. 

The following are highlights from the two federal races of note – the race for President and for U.S. Senate:

President

In a race that many observers thought might take several days to finalize, former President Donald Trump prevailed in the nationwide electoral college count over incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris.  The Wisconsin results are as follows:

• Former President Donald Trump (R):  49.7% 
• Vice President Kamala Harris (D):  48.8%

U.S. Senate

For much of 2024, incumbent U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin held a 5-10% lead over challenger Eric Hovde in the election polls.  As the November election got closer, the polls tightened considerably.  The results are as follows:

• U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D):  49.4%
• Eric Hovde (R):  48.5%

State Assembly

Currently, there is a 64-34 Republican majority in the state Assembly, with one vacant seat in a majority Democratic district in the city of Milwaukee.  All 99 Assembly seats were up for election this year. 

On Election Day, Republicans won 54 Assembly races, which gives them the majority for the 2025-2026 legislative session.  Assembly Republicans now will have 10 fewer seats than they did during the 2023-2024 legislative session.  Democrats won 45 Assembly races. 

State Senate

At this time, Republicans have a supermajority in the state Senate, with 22 senators, while Democrats have 10 senators, with one vacant seat in a heavily Democratic district in the city of Milwaukee.  Roughly half of the senate seats are up for election every two years.  As such, 16 of the 33 Senate seats were up for election this year. 

The final result in the Senate is that Senate Republicans lost 4 Senate seats, bringing their majority down from 22 seats to 18 seats for the 2025-2026 legislative session.  Democrats will have 14 seats in the Senate. 

The following incumbent senators lost their bid for re-election: 

Senate District 8 – Northern Milwaukee Suburbs

• Jodi Habush Sinykin (D):  50.8%
• Sen. Duey Stroebel (R):  49.3%

Senate District 8 – Southcentral Wisconsin North of Madison (and a portion of Madison)

• Sarah Keyeski (D):  51.1%
• Sen. Joan Ballweg (R):  48.9%

In early November, Republicans and Democrats started to vote internally on their respective leadership teams.  The following are the newly selected leaders, as of November 14:

Senate Republicans

• Senate Majority Leader – Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg)
• Senate President – Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk)
• • She is new in this role. 
• Senate Assistant Majority Leader – Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac)
• Senate President Pro Tempore – Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point)
• Senate Republican Caucus Char – Van Wanggaard (R-Racine)
• Senate Republican Caucus Vice-Chair Rachel Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton)
• • She is new to this role. 

Senate Democrats

• Senate Minority Leader – Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton)
• Senate Assistant Minority Leader – Jeff Smith (D-Eau Claire)
• Senate Minority Caucus Chair – Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit)
• • He is new in this role. 
• Senate Minority Vice Caucus Chair – Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee)
• • She is new in this role. 

Assembly Republicans

• Assembly Speaker – Robin Vos (R-Rochester)
• Assembly Majority Leader – Tyler August (R-Walworth)
• Assembly Assistant Majority Leader – Scott Krug (R-Nekoosa)
• • He is new in this role. 
• Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore – Kevin Peterson (R-Waupaca)
• Assembly Majority Caucus Chair – Rob Summerfield (R-Bloomer)
• Assembly Majority Caucus Vice Chair – Cindi Duchow (R-Delafield)
• Assembly Majority Caucus Secretary – Nancy VanderMeer (R-Tomah)
• Assembly Majority Caucus Sergeant at Arms – Treig Pronschinske (R-Mondovi)

Assembly Democrats

·        Assembly Minority Leader – Rep. Greta Neubauer (D-Racine)

·        Assembly Assistant Minority Leader – Rep. Kaylan Haywood (D-Milwaukee)

·        Assembly Minority Caucus Chair – Lisa Subek (D-Madison)

·        Assembly Minority Caucus Vice-Chair – Rep. Clinton Anderson (D-Beloit)

·        Assembly Minority Caucus Secretary – Rep. Mike Bare (D-Verona)

·        Assembly Minority Caucus Sergeant at Arms – Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire)