WACEP President's Message, June 2021

June 18, 2021 9:53 AM | Anonymous

Happy Summer Everyone! Up here in NE Wisconsin at least we could use a rain dance!

We are having an exciting summer at WACEP. We had our first in person board meeting in over a year and met at Lambeau Field — home of America’s Favorite football team. We had a great day and have a lot of ongoing advocacy work on behalf of you.

Our most exciting news is that the Joint Finance Committee met on Tuesday and decided to include in their budget a raise for emergency services. This is our first MA rate increase in nearly 30 years (the last increase was a 1% increase). Though the final numbers are not yet complete this should be a significant, double digit increase accounting for at least $4m dollars per year from Medicaid to Emergency department professional fees. We anticipate the provision will be approved when the full legislature takes up the bill. Considering the Governor proposed the rate increase in his executive budget proposal, we expect a favorable result when it arrives at his desk. In the event that the Governor vetoes the entire legislative budget for other reasons, we will continue our advocacy armed with bipartisan support.

As always our team continues to work on many other issues: psychiatric care, violation of the prudent layperson standard by denying claims for emergency care, balanced billing issues, and many more items.

Thanks for being a member! Please know our next meeting is Tuesday, September 14th. Board meetings are open to anyone who may like to join. Also please save the date for the 2022 Spring Symposium, April 21-22, 2022 in Milwaukee, WI.

As always, if you have any issues you would like us to take a look at please reach out!

-Brad