APTA Nebraska Podcast
The APTA Nebraska Podcast dives into the stories, challenges, and innovations shaping physical therapy in our state. We’re here to advance, promote, and protect the practice of physical therapy, build our community, and optimize the health and quality of life for all Nebraskans.
APTA Nebraska Podcast
E4 - President's Update
The APTA Nebraska podcast discusses recent graduates, state advocacy, and prosthetics initiatives while providing important timeline updates for members and highlighting opportunities for engagement.
• Congratulations to 2025 PT and PTA graduates, with reminders about patience during the four-week licensure process
• Announcement of an All-District meeting featuring House of Delegates information and legislative session updates
• Interview with Vince Lau about "So Every Body Can Move" initiative seeking insurance coverage for activity-specific prosthetic devices
• Details on LB410 (Insurance Fairness Act) with fiscal impact of only 1-12¢ per member monthly but potential savings of $68 million
• Upcoming events including Running Blade Clinic (June 21st) and Blade 5K (July 12th) at College of St. Mary
• Updates on Medicare rules for 2026 with limited clarity on Medicare Advantage plans
• Early bird deadlines for specialist certifications: July 1st for cardiovascular, pulmonary, electrophysiology, oncology, women's health, wound management; July 31st for geriatric, neurologic, orthopedic, pediatric, sports
• APTA member deals including 25% off car rentals and 65% off UPS shipping
Nebraska APTA House of Delegates Town Hall Meeting Link:
Passcode: 8J%&mc95
Vince Lau and Limb Lab Information:
- Contact
- Information Links
Welcome to the APTA Nebraska podcast, where we dive into the stories, challenges and innovations shaping physical therapy in our state. We're here to advance, promote and protect the practice of physical therapy, optimizing the health and quality of life for all Nebraskans. Join us as we connect with experts, share insights and build communities throughout our profession. Connect with experts, share insights and build communities throughout our profession. Hey, welcome back to the APTA Nebraska podcast. This is Brad, and I have Nick with me today. Hey, nick, hey, how we doing? Thanks for having me back. Yeah, it's good to kind of run it back again. Hey, first and foremost, we need to congratulate all of our 2025 PT and PTA graduates. Right, and this is where I would insert the applause if I had the capabilities to do that. So, if you're listening, just imagine that applause in the background. Okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I can too, I want to also express my congratulations to all those that have worked really hard. I know this is a fun time and you have wrapped up your schooling and hopefully there's a career plan already in place. And I know even recently we found out results of the April licensure exam, so I'm sure a lot of people are celebrating that here just in the last couple of weeks as well. It's a lot to be proud of and again we want to just express our congratulations. Brad, as you probably remember back to that time of life too I do. I can still remember where I was when I opened up my licensure exam score and found out I passed right.
Speaker 1:I emailed like the night that I took my test and I got a score back the next day from a state. It was great. This is before having like the standardized testing dates though.
Speaker 2:So it's a. It's a very memorable time and and worth taking just a minute to reflect on all the all the work put in to get to that point.
Speaker 1:Truly you've, you've made it and now you can. You can actually get out into the working world. It's a phenomenal thing. So maybe along those lines, anything you want to say about the licensure process.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, as you move forward, if you're going to get licensed here in Nebraska which we hope you do, definitely, you know, make sure I know this is it's a process that does take some time.
Speaker 2:And while you think, hey, I graduated, I passed my licensure exam, I wanna just jump into practice. Unfortunately, it's not always that easy. There is a little bit of a delay to just getting the licensing processed. So I guess my first point is just be patient. It probably takes, on average, about four weeks, and I really want to encourage you that, as you fill out the application, really be diligent and make sure that you have everything it's asking for, as a lot of you apply for licensure at the same time and the state goes through that process. If you're missing any documents, they're just going to put your application at the bottom of the pile and they may not even notify you until they get a minute to do so, and that could be a few weeks. And then, of course, you would need to resubmit those documents and get that done. So really be thoughtful and fill that out, be careful and make sure you have everything in there, just to make it go as fast as you can.
Speaker 1:Love it. Hey, let's kind of shift gears toward what's happening in the state. Right now, there's an all district meeting that's coming up here yet this month. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in May here we're going to have an all district meeting that's going to include kind of an idea. We're going to meet with Bobby Greasy, gail Jensen, maybe Kate Kugler, some of those that will be participating in House of Delegates, and the plan is for them to just kind of highlight what will be going on this year. We will record that session. So if you're not able to attend, we'll have the recording for you and maybe can even link it to this podcast for you. But yeah, please check that out. If you have any questions in advance, we'd love to hear from you. But it should be a nice kind of overview of everything that is going on in regards to House of Delegates. And then we're also going to kind of wrap up with just some information about the Nebraska legislative session is coming to an end here really quickly, so we'll kind of wrap up where we are in that process as well, and so, again, you can find that in the recording if you are unable to attend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like Nick said we'll have, there should be a link down in the show notes for you to connect directly to that on the APTA Nebraska website. Hey, nick, I was previously made aware of another advocacy opportunity that our members could be engaged with. Vince Lau, who's a friend of our organization, agreed to hop on to the podcast and share a little bit more about some of the efforts that he has going on. That would really fit along our practice lines as well. So, vince, welcome to the podcast. And hey, would you mind sharing a little bit about yourself with our audience?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, glad to be here. I'm Vince Lau. I'm a certified prosthetist, orthotist, I am working in Lim Lab and I am the market leader for our Omaha office.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks. So you were telling me a little bit about this effort called so Every Body Can Move right. Can you share with our members what that is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this is a national grassroots advocacy initiative that is going on in the field of orthotics and prosthetics. We have two main tenets for so Everybody Can Move. The first is that movement is medicine and the second is that physical activity is a right, not a privilege. I think this is something that you guys, as physical therapists, can really agree upon, and this is where we really meet in the middle. This initiative, so Everybody Can Move, it started in 2022. Initially it was called so Kids Can Move, and then we realized that there's no need to just have it be focused on kids and we want to open it up to the entire population. So it was expanded to so every body can move and to include all ages.
Speaker 3:Our main goal really with this initiative is to improve access to prosthetic and orthotic devices for any physical activity sports or exercises that most insurances typically deem as not medically necessary or exercises that most insurances typically deem as not medically necessary. Since 2022, we've had several states join the overall kind of coalition and our main goal, as we've been saying, it is 28 by 28, where we'll have 28 states by 2028, having passed some sort of legislation that follows kind of our model, and then we can use the 2028 Paralympics here in LA as our platform to push for federal reform. This is something that's actually been seen in like, most recently in France last year. They actually use the Paralympics to kind of improve their legislation and their coverage of these devices.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's the background on this? How did it really get going?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So there's kind of a lot of information that has come together that we use to kind of describe why we think movement is important. The main thing that we look at is the Department of Health and Human Services. They recommend that children get 60 minutes of daily activity and adults get 150 minutes weekly activity, preferably vigorous. And what's interesting is if that's for people who are able-bodied. If you look at their recommendations for those with any sort of physical disabilities, the recommendations are exactly the same. So DHS really wants everybody to be active. It doesn't matter what your physical ability is or not. So we feel like that is a statement by a government organization that kind of justifies why everybody should have that activity, why it's important for them.
Speaker 3:Studies show that people with disability have a disproportionately higher risk of decreased physical activity, of obesity and chronic loneliness. And then we also find that our current healthcare system is biased towards those who are full-bodied and not disabled. So if you look at an ACL repair probably one of the more common elective procedures out there it's usually covered by insurance under the verbiage that it is required to restore the body to its full potential. That it is required to restore the body to its full potential. Between 100,000 or 300,000 ACL procedures are performed a year, which costs a total of about $500 million just for ACLs, just for an elective procedure. So we thought, if healthcare can justify and cover elective procedures for ACLs, why not for prosthetic and orthotic devices? Yeah, and that's what kind of led to this movement of. Not only is movement medicine and it's important for those patients that we specifically see in our field, but anything else like not allowing them, that is just discrimination of physical ability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can just listen to you talk. I can kind of think about the potential impact here. You know, increasing physical activity for some of the patients that we're serving, allowing them to engage in social activities or communities, being able to run, participate in local gyms, right, Even things like water sports, potential to wear devices and to showers, Like there's a lot of potential impacts from what you're talking about, right.
Speaker 3:Exactly exactly. Yeah, what you listed off is, you know, kind of the main things that we point at and things that are often overlooked things that we point at and things that are often overlooked. One of the things that we say, you know, when we're kind of talking to people about this, is if you want to go running, all you have to do is change your shoes, but if somebody with a prosthesis or an orthosis wants to go running, they need a whole new device specifically for that. And when we look at this, a lot of times this is going to be more specific to your lower extremity devices. A lot of times, for an upper extremity device say, somebody is missing their arm insurance will sometimes cover more than one device because they understand that the prosthesis, specifically upper extremity, is a tool for specific activities and sometimes you need more than one, but they won't cover more than one leg, which we just see as kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 3:And then same, like you said, wearing a device in the shower. That is something that is really easy to overlook. We see that person, we see them every day, but you have to think about their full days of activities and even have, you know, young patients like I have a young gentleman who's 25 assigns amputees, so that means that ankle disarticulation typically a weight bearing level of amputation and he, he just doesn't feel comfortable weight bearing in it. He tried jumping in the shower once and fell he's 25, yeah, it's like, if he's falling now at 25, what's?
Speaker 3:going to happen 10, 20, 30 years later, this guy could have a lot of potential. We want to make sure that he's got that ability to, you know, live his life safely and also live up to the activities he wants to do.
Speaker 1:So I understand you're really you're trying to make this go right. What kind of efforts do you have going on right now? What's the financial impact and what kind of collaboration are you looking for?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, like I said, so everybody can move is a nationwide effort. Right now we have nine states that have passed bills and legislation specific to the verbiage for activity, specific stuff, and then Georgia any day now, like literally any day, we're waiting for the governor to sign that bill to be number 10. Overall, there's about 40 states that have advocacy teams. That is growing. We're working on getting all 50 states involved.
Speaker 3:Here in Nebraska for the last two years I've been working to get what's called the Insurance Fairness Act. Typically this is kind of seen as bringing the bottom up before we raise the ceiling, making sure that any insurance policy, primarily commercial, has to have the same level of coverage as Medicare, not fee schedule wise, but just if Medicare covers this device, then this commercial plan will too. So that's LB410 for this year. Had introduced, had a really good hearing, nick, I really appreciate you coming to the testimony there or the hearing and giving your testimony. That was very much appreciated and just showing the collaboration that we have and we'll get into more of that.
Speaker 3:We're going to be coming back for 2026, hopefully with our full verbiage saying you know what we're not just going to fight for bringing the bottom up, we want to do all of it once, and that's what we're doing now. So it's going to require coverage of orthotic and prosthetic devices for daily activities, meeting the standards of Medicare, but also expanding it to cover activity-specific devices. We'll focus on making sure that we have verbiage to describe that a patient should have the full functional return of activities similar to a non-disabled person, just like I said with the acl repairs. And then, finally, we want to make sure that we eliminate any discriminatory policies that exclude people with limb loss and limb difference from opportunities to maintain physical health, independence and economic productivity. Each state is working on to justifying this legislation. When we go and talk to our senators, we have to have a discussion of the fiscal impact.
Speaker 3:Specifically for Nebraska, the estimated per cost per member increase is one to 12 cents a month, which means at most yeah, we're asking somebody to put in a dollar 44 a year, like I don't even know what you can get for a dollar 44 anymore in this economy, so it should be a fairly easy ask. What's crazy is if we have these people more active and they're they're doing more activities, they're reducing some of the effects of their comorbidities and some of the other healthcare issues they have. We're estimating a total reduced healthcare cost of about $68 million, which is just disproportionate to how much more it's going to cost the individual.
Speaker 1:Seems like a good return on the investment right.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and that's kind of our main thing that we needed to really talk to when we're talking to the senators, when we're talking to the lobbyists for the insurance companies, is saying this is actually going to save you guys money in the long run and help a very specific population. But this is not something I can do alone. For the last couple of years I actually have been doing it almost alone as the lead advocate for Nebraska and what I need is people who are willing to put in a little bit of time to help join me. So I do have someone else who has joined me, another clinician, dr Emily Stephenson. She's a CPO, has her PhD in biomechanics good friend of mine, so we're part of. She's now officially part of my team. If anybody else is interested in joining. We usually have a chat like every three weeks just to kind of say hey, here's our goals, few things to work on and how we move forward.
Speaker 3:If anybody wants to join the team. I'll make sure that you guys have a link for that. Or if anybody just wants to stay in contact and hear what's going on, I'll have a link for that as well. And just you know, you want to see what people can do if they are given access to devices like these. We have a few events coming up. June 21st, Linlab and Levitate are co-hosting a running blade clinic. This is actually going to be at College of St Mary, where we're going to have feet for amputees where they can try them out and see what it's like to run. I could use some PTs to help out with that, just to do some basic gait training and also spread the word to patients, because this is open to any patient.
Speaker 3:They don't have to be an existing limb lab patient, but we want people to try stuff out. We do have cool swag bags for our patient attendees. So I'm getting sponsored by a few local groups, like Big Grove Brewery. They're going to be opening up in June and so they're sponsoring us. Then in July we have the Blade 5K, so this is run by the Amputee Wellness Alliance of the Midlands, or AWA. That's July 12th, so come run in Omaha Once again at the College of St Mary Fieldhouse so you can come run with us. That's raising money to provide running blades for amputees. Um, the that group is fully aware that I am trying to make their non-profit non-existent through changed legislation and they're all for it. And then finally in october for the nebraska market to. We're actually trying to make a all amputee team and if you have any active amputees, send them our way. Really, just shoot me an email. Make sure that, brad, you can put that in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:And you know we're going to have a cool team and we're going to use them to really emphasize this initiative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey, this is all great. I love the work that you're doing and I love that you're willing to kind of share some of this information with a lot of my colleagues as well. So, listeners, I'll have Vince's contact information in the show notes, as well as hyperlinks so everybody can move for the legislation LB410 that's trying to go through. If you want to become an advocate, I'll have information there, and then all of the events that Vince just talked about, we'll have some links in the show notes for as well, so you can easily connect with him if you have any interest. Vince, thanks for joining the conversation, even if briefly, to share about what you have going on.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Thank you, Brad, Thank you Nick.
Speaker 1:All right, Nick. Finally, let's just kind of shift gears toward practice updates. So you were talking to me a little bit before we started recording about the final Medicare rules for 2026. What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the rules have come out. There's links posted to them in the SOAP note that came out in May as well, if you want to go directly and read more about them. Essentially, there was a few positives and a few things that we really were hoping were going to be better. Those things kind of revolved around Medicare Advantage plans. I know for a lot of you there has been just a desire for more information on what securities patients have with these plans, making sure that they're fully aware of what is in them and what their plan covers. And then for the provider, we were looking for more information about what are the specifics on prior authorization or how do these utilization management companies work that control these plans, and unfortunately we didn't get any more clarity on those, and we also didn't get a really clear idea of was this 26 rule the final rule, in the sense that they're just not?
Speaker 2:The administration is not going to give us any more information on this, or do we just need to be patient? My understanding is APTA has put out a request for more information on that, and so we just need to be patient. My understanding is APTA has put out a request for more information on that and so far it's just been silent. So that's where we're at. I wish I had better news for you, but that's just kind of where we're at with these Medicare Advantage plans. We'll continue to advocate for just more information and keep you up to date on that as best we can.
Speaker 1:Well, nick, I have one quick update on APTA specialist certification programs. There are some early bird deadlines if you're planning on applying for your specialist certification. So the July 1st early bird application deadline is for cardiovascular and pulmonary. July 1st early bird application deadline is for cardiovascular and pulmonary, clinical electrophysiology, oncology, women's health and wound management specialists, and then the July 31st early bird application deadline is for geriatric, neurologic, orthopedic, pediatric and sports specialties. In all of those cases the final application deadlines are September 30th. But past those early bird deadlines, just so you know, audience, if you're interested, the application rates go up $100. Hey, thanks for the updates today.
Speaker 1:Nick, members, audience, hopefully this is helpful for you, a different way to hear some of the information. I would just kind of loop back and let you guys know that again, we'll have the video for the all-district meeting in the show notes. I think it's helpful to kind of hear what we're anticipating at House of Delegates this year, and so you know we're going to have a follow-up podcast that'll launch in August to just share more information about some of those conversations and the things that happened at House of Delegates as well. So Bobby Greasy and Ian Thompson will be on that show when the time comes. Hey, I do want to highlight just a couple member deals here in May that are maybe timely for some of our graduates, since we opened the show with graduates.
Speaker 1:So, first and foremost, through member deals, through the APTA, you can get 25% off on car and truck rentals from providers like Avis and Budget. You can also get up to 65% on shipping things with UPS, and so I would recommend that you guys look into some of that if you're needing help with shipping or moving items, as you're kind of going out into your new jobs and starting your careers too. So thank you all for listening, and we'll have another podcast in a couple weeks for you coming up. So tune in again. Thanks for tuning in to the APTA Nebraska podcast. Stay connected with us for more conversations that elevate our profession and improve the lives of Nebraskans. Don't forget to subscribe, share and join the discussion, because together we're driving the future of Nebraskans. Don't forget to subscribe, share and join the discussion, because together we're driving the future of physical therapy forward.
