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
E7 - President's Update
The APTA Nebraska podcast provides critical updates on recent healthcare legislation and upcoming events for physical therapists throughout the state. This legislation brings a 2.5% Medicare fee increase for 2026 while highlighting concerns about rural hospital closures and changes to student loan programs.
• Recent "Big Beautiful Bill" signed with 2.5% Medicare fee schedule increase for 2026
• Concerns about Medicaid cuts potentially impacting rural Nebraska hospitals
• New $100,000 cap on grad plus loans affecting PT student financing
• EPSIG Social at Sunny's on September 17th from 7-9pm
• Nebraska PTs participating in Husker Harvest Days Health Exhibit (Sept 9-11)
• "Baseball-a-ween" trunk-or-treat event at Werner Park on October 24
• Jingle Bell Run returning December 6th
• APTA advocacy app available for easy communication with representatives
Download the APTA Advocacy app to stay informed and communicate with your representatives. It's the easiest way to engage in advocacy and make your voice heard.
Episode Links:
- EPSIG Summer Social: Nebraska APTA... - Nebraska Physical Therapy Association | Facebook
- Member Deals: APTA Membership Benefits and Discounts | APTA
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. With experts, share insights and build communities throughout our profession. All right, welcome back to the APTA Nebraska podcast. I'm Brad Dexter.
Speaker 2:I'm joined by Nick Weber today. Hi, Nick. Hey, great to be back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good to have you back. Hey, we want to give a few updates to our membership today. One of those is you know, there was a bill that was just signed here in the last week, right? So I'd love to hear how that's maybe impacting practice and maybe what's continuing to happen at an advocacy level. And then we have a number of events that are coming up too. So, nick, I know you want to talk about some of those events, and so that's kind of our. Those are our chapter titles for today, and I guess I'll let you just jump in with that first one. So the big beautiful bill was signed within the last week here. Why don't you go ahead and tell us how that's impacting our profession?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, in a sense it's nice to be able to take a breath for a minute now that it's done. A lot of advocacy attempts went into this. There's a lot of collaborations amongst all kinds of health professionals across Nebraska and at the national level, of course as well, so there's a few big updates. From a healthcare standpoint, I think there were a lot of concerns with this bill. Now we just kind of wait on the back end to see what comes to fruition.
Speaker 2:One kind of positive thing just right off the top we did get a 2.5% increase to the Medicare fee schedule, to the conversion factor for 2026, which we're excited about. Unfortunately, they didn't include that same increase we were asking for for the 2025 fiscal year, so we'll just have to wait for that one a little bit, and so at least the 2026 increase gets us back to the previous rate from the cut that we had in 2025. So excited to see that. Tentatively, there was a time from the House bill where we also had an inflationary increase, an annual increase, that was included within the bill, which is something that health associations have been trying to advocate for for a long time, and that passed with the House version. Unfortunately, it came out of the Senate version, so advocacy continues on that front.
Speaker 2:And then you know, I think, like I said, we're just kind of we got to kind of wait and see how things play out. There's there was a lot of talk about cuts to Medicaid and people losing their access to the Medicaid system. We know that's going to have some impact here in Nebraska and now we just need to kind of watch and see how that all plays out. If you look at some of the reports from state senators, they're very aware that this could have a big impact on our rural hospitals. There is a fund out there to try to soften that blow and that would require the state to apply for some of those funds, and so we hope to see our congressional leaders and our governor work together with our hospital system and just really try to make sure that they get the funds necessary to keep our hospitals open, though I know the Nebraska hospital association is worried that this particular bill might cause, you know, a dozen hospitals to close. And so you know we're going to continue to try to support our hospital systems here in Nebraska and just kind of see how that all plays out. But we really hope not to lose any more hospital systems. I know we just lost one in the last week. So one of our rural settings, so hope for just good things on that front.
Speaker 2:The other part of the bill that was the kind of concerning was on the student loan side of things.
Speaker 2:There are new regulations in place that make it a little more restrictive as far as first attaining loans, now grad loans.
Speaker 2:The grad plus program is limited to $100,000. So anything above that students will have to go out and find private loans, which of course can just you know they can still attain. They'll need a cosigner, you'll need good credit scores to get those things. They might come with a variable rate and then just a little bit more risk for both them and the cosigner. So we will try to help them. You know, myself and Brad, you, I know, at the different schools throughout Nebraska here you know, trying to make sure our applicants to stay strong, and so we want to make sure that we're helping those individuals find the loans that they need to get through our programs. And so you know I think it's going to put a little more work on the programs to do that help their students find resources to find loans that are if they need them, and just see how that potentially has an effect on the kind of long term picture potentially in our workforce and making sure we're not losing applicants to other professions, especially those that want to be in PT.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Thanks for the updates. Obviously, anytime new legislation is signed like that, you know we're always kind of watching and trying to figure out what's the fallout, what are the upsides, what's the fallout from something like that too? And so you know we're pretty good at changing within our profession and being nimble. We've got to continue doing that. As we move forward, too, New problems arise and we've got to figure out new solutions.
Speaker 2:That's right. Like you said, that's not something new to us. We're used to adjusting on the fly and making the best of what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hey. So the other thing I mentioned is, you know a lot of events are coming up, both to kind of round out this summer, but also throughout the fall. Here too, why don't you start us off with the EPSIG social that's coming up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Excited to bring attention to this, our APTA Nebraska Early Professional Special Interest Group is hosting an event at Sunny's on September 17th. They're calling this their Summer Social. It's an opportunity for early professionals just to connect with other early professionals as well as network with some mentors, if they're looking for mentorship, with some mentors, if they're looking for mentorship, some of our mentors that volunteer for us here in Nebraska will be there, and so just a nice opportunity. I think it's from 7 to 9 on the 17th at Sonny's in Omaha.
Speaker 2:And so we hope to see a lot of people there for that Good and then in September we have a contingent that will be at Husker Harvest Days, right, yeah, new thing for us Our new Central District chairs identified an opportunity to participate in the Health and Wellness Exhibit Fair at Husker Harvest Days, september 9th through the 11th.
Speaker 2:We hear that something like 90,000 individuals come through that particular event. So a great opportunity for us to promote the physical therapy profession and just wellness in general. And we're going to be kind of partnering with the Nebraska AgrAbility group with a booth and just some kind of fun giveaways and things at our booth. So we encourage people to come by as well as we're looking for people to help us just kind of work the table over the course of three days. So for any clinicians out there that maybe are kind of in that area and want to help us out, we are also happy to kind of welcome them to set out any materials they might have, resources about their particular company. If they want to share that at the table, we're happy to include that kind of along with all our other information that we'll have.
Speaker 1:Good, and then in October I know there's a Halloween opportunity. Nick, are you dressing up for that one?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, if you've ever come to Jingle Bell Run before too, you know I'm not afraid to get into costumes for some of our events. So yeah, we're going to participate in Baseball-a-ween this year at Werner Park on October 24th and for those that aren't familiar, it's like a huge trunk or treat event for kids. Something like 5,000 kids come through the event. A lot of companies set up activity stations kind of all around Werner Park and inside the event and then outside as well. So we're going to have a booth, we're going to hand out a lot of candy, we'll be dressed up, we'll have a theme. We're kind of discussing right now maybe some different activities for our booth. I know kind of pumpkin bowling has risen to the top of that particular opportunity, so we'll come up with something. It'll be a fun event. Hope families will come out. And again, if anybody wants to help us work the work the table, we'd love to have you there and help us hand out candy the work, the table.
Speaker 1:We'd love to have you there and help us hand out candy. That's great. And then kind of rounding out the the fall activities. Uh, you've got the jingle bell run in december, correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's uh, saturday, december 6th. Um, this is our fourth year doing this. Um, grace not and myself will be co-chairing the event with the nebraskaritis Foundation. And another just fun event and opportunity to come out, get a nice walker short 5k, run in before it gets too cold and again, that's a. It's a fun kind of dress up event. We love to see people in their Santa elf costumes. All the different things come out. We got good weather last year. We're hoping for the same this year. So, yeah, I hope you guys all come out and if you sign up in July, we'll give you $5 off registration and we'll have an APT Nebraska team that you can find on the website.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, thanks, hey. You know, for any of our members that are listening to this, if you guys want to get engaged, we will have links at the bottom of the podcast for you to be able to link easily to any of those events so you can see them. Epsig social, too. It's a great way just to connect with your peers and with mentors within our organization too. Great way to network throughout our state and just get to know some more PTs there as well. And you know I wouldn't be doing my membership chair duties if I didn't share some kind of a membership benefit.
Speaker 1:Right now, and since that Jingle Bell run is you know what, five, six months off or away at this point, there are a couple membership benefits through the APTA that could help get you ready for something like that, should you want to go out and run. So, first and foremost, there's kind of a network called Active and Fit Direct, which can give you access to over 13,000 gyms and thousands of on-demand workouts for a really low price. So pretty ideal for busy schedules that many of us are engaged in. And then there are always discounts on different types of shoes through the APTA as well New Balance, Saucony and more. So make sure that you go check out your membership benefits on the APTA website and don't forget that you can get those discounts on the training and the shoes as well, Nick, I think the last thing I wanted to bring up was you know, we have our delegates for our chapter of the APTA in Nebraska here heading out to House of Delegates within the next week and, just for you listeners, we will be having updates from that.
Speaker 1:We will not be live updating that at all, but we will provide updates in August on another podcast, if you're interested in learning more about what was being accomplished at House of Delegates this year. I think that's all I have, Nick. Anything else you want to add?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like you said, looking forward to the House Should be a really fun few days going out to do my components, meeting with other presidents across the country, and then the two days for the House, as well as Capitol Hill Day tacked on the end. So we'll have an opportunity to meet with our five congressional leaders as well, and we have a nice group of clinicians that are coming out to do that, those meetings. So hopefully we'll get some more information from them regarding this one big beautiful bill as well. So we should have a lot of information to report back here into July and into early August.
Speaker 1:Good. Well, thanks for all that you're doing. I know there's it's not just you, it's a number of other people and advocacy is not always a fast thing, right, it's slow, it's plodding, like some of us might run the jingle bell run. It can be more of a pl plot than a sprint, right, and sometimes it doesn't feel like much is getting done, and other times it feels like things are moving really fast, and so I know we've got to just keep at it. In a lot of ways, we've got to continue building relationships, building networks of people, and we need members like those of you listening to be a part of that as well. Make your voice heard.
Speaker 1:If you haven't been aware of it, there is an app for the APTA to easily advocate. It's the APTA Advocacy app. I would encourage any of you that are listening to download that. It's probably the easiest way to engage in advocacy. You can easily send letters to your representatives through that app and be kept up to date as to what's going on as well. So thanks again for all of you that are listening and hope this is an easy way to kind of stay up to date with what we have going on in our organization, within our profession and much more of this will also be coming out in an email form and will be accessible on our website as well. So until next time, hope you all do well. 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 physical therapy forward.
