A lot has happened since the Fall Advocacy Update in both the reimbursement and legislative spaces. For Medicare reimbursement, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) posted final rules for Inpatient Rehabilitation, Inpatient PPS, Inpatient Psychiatric, Long-Term Care Hospitals, Outpatient PPS, and Home Health Providers. SDAHO submitted comment letters on many of these proposed rules and provided feedback as needed to our congressional staffers. On the Medicaid side of things, the Department of Human Services recently updated their LTSS Provider Portal to include the annual rate study reports.
2025 Legislative Session
Keeping with the budget and reimbursement theme, Governor Noem presented her proposed FY26 budget on December 3, 2024. Noem proposed a 1.25% increase for the big three which includes Medicaid providers, state employees, and teachers. Time will tell if the legislature keeps that, as included in her budget are many cuts to programs and increases to fees across all areas of State Government. For healthcare, the proposed budget includes bringing both the Social Services and Human Services Medicaid budgets in line with their current utilization rates. Additionally, the budget proposes to completely cut the State’s Graduate Medical Education, Renal Disease and Subsidized Assisted Living programs. The SDAHO Advocacy Team has already started discussions with both the State and legislators about the impact of these proposed cuts.
On the policy side of things, the SDAHO Advocacy Team anticipates more healthcare related bills again this year. Some topics from the past few years include anti-vaccination bills for school aged children, licensure compacts and issues, reproductive rights issues, medical conscience and more.
The 2025 Legislative Session will be very interesting for a couple reasons. First, there are 41 new lawmakers this year with 33 that have never served in the legislature before. There will likely be a lot of time at the beginning of the session to work through the process and learn how the flow of things is going to go. There have already been over 100 pre-filed bills dropped, and that number is expected to continue to grow leading up to the State of the State on January 14. On top of that, it is likely that South Dakota will have a new Governor starting in the middle of session, something that hasn’t happened in the 100-year history of the legislature. Governor Kristi Noem will likely become the next Director of Homeland Security in Washington D.C. If that occurs, which would likely happen around January 20, Lieutenant Governor Larry Rhoden would become the 34th Governor of South Dakota.
The 100th legislative session begins Tuesday, January 14 with Governor Kristi Noem providing the State of the State and concludes on Thursday, March 13. The SDAHO Advocacy Team will be in Pierre each day of the 9-week session and always welcomes collaboration with members on what is happening in Pierre. Please feel free to follow along with our SDAHO Bill Tracker and reach out to our Director of Advocacy and Reimbursement, Jacob Parsons, if you have any questions along the way!
