Gundersen Lutheran Health System Inc.

06/16/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/16/2025 08:40

Rep. Hinson talks nursing bill with West Union staff

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Rep. Hinson talks nursing bill with West Union staff

Monday, June 16, 2025

Wellness visits, pharmacy access and a future OB unit were topics on the table during a recent visit from Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinsonto Emplify Health by Gundersen West Union Hospital. The Congresswoman spoke with Emplify Health representatives about rural healthcare and a recent bill that was introduced that would allow nurses to bill for annual wellness visits. The discussion focused on issues the bill - called the RNs for Rural Health Act- hopes to address, including workforce, access and preventative care.

According to documentation provided by Hinson's office, the bill seeks to create equity between provider-based clinics and rural health clinics and to increase completion of annual wellness visits to drive down costs. Specifically, it allows licensed nurses, under the direct supervision of a rural healthcare practitioner, to facilitate wellness visits in rural health clinics, and it ensures adequate coverage of outpatient annual wellness visits, known as personalized prevention plan services, at rural health clinics under the Medicare program.

Andrea Dietzenbach is a PA and Cassie Tieskoetter is a nurse at West Union. Dietzenbach says the flexibility the new bill provides would allow them to work together, especially with Medicare visits, as those are rather time consuming because of the amount of paperwork included. With Tieskoetter or other nurses handling the Medicare annual wellness visits, it would allow for proper referrals and overall better patient care from the PA, Dietzenbach said.

Hinson said lawmakers aren't looking to encroach on the scope of practice, but instead, if there are areas that can run more efficiently and create better patient outcomes, that's the goal of the work. She encourages those at the meeting to contact her with other ideas.

Kristi Flack, Emplify Health by Gundersen West Union board president, told Hinson that Postvillerecently lost its only pharmacy, so they're looking at ways for residents - especially migrants - to get their medicines because many people don't or can't leave town. That leaves them with few options, and many people simply forgo filling prescriptions. That, in turn, led to more emergent care down the line, Flack said.

"If they're not getting their primary care they need or they're not filling prescriptions that they should, we're then seeing them on the ambulance and having to commute them to a hospital," said Flack, who is also a Postville EMT. "A lot of times, if they had gotten the medication they needed, we wouldn't have seen them."

Hinson said the primary goal is to keep pharmacies from closing in small communities but wondered aloud if there is a model like Emplify Health's mobile mammography unit that could bring medicines to the residents.

Emplify Health representatives also touched on the progress of the new OB unit in the works for the West Union Hospital, sharing schematic plans for the remodel. Hinson helped secure a federal grant of $1.1 million for the project, and the West Union Hospital Foundation Board is contributing another $350,000.

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