Wisconsin Well
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The Wisconsin Well Woman Program (WWWP) provides preventive screenings to Wisconsin women who are 45-64 years old, have little or no health insurance, and whose earnings are at or below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level. WWWP fully pays for: mammograms , pap tests, cervical cancer screenings, and multiple-sclerosis screenings for high-risk women.
Once a diagnosis is determined from the WWWP screenings, additional health care costs or treatments must be paid for with another source of funding, such as BadgerCare, private insurance, or other funding programs. All 72 Wisconsin counties and 11 tribes have access to WWWP services. According to the Department of Health Services, 5,739 Wisconsin women received WWWP services in 2014.
Once a diagnosis is determined from the WWWP screenings, additional health care costs or treatments must be paid for with another source of funding, such as BadgerCare, private insurance, or other funding programs. All 72 Wisconsin counties and 11 tribes have access to WWWP services. According to the Department of Health Services, 5,739 Wisconsin women received WWWP services in 2014.
Non-Budgetary Changes to the Wisconsin Well Woman Program
The Department of Health Services (DHS) recently implemented significant, non-budgetary changes to the WWWP. The previous version of WWWP was an effective, preventive health care option for women with 72 local coordinating agencies and a network of thousands of healthcare providers. The new version of WWWP only has 14 non-tribal regional coordinating agencies for the entire state. Most recognized Wisconsin Indian tribes have their own individual coordinating agency. In addition, the number of participating providers has been drastically reduced and family planning providers have been eliminated from the eligible provider list completely. Furthermore, providers are now required to apply to participate in the program instead of sharing the cost of treating low-income and under-insured women across multiple providers within a community. The quality and consistency of care is at risk due to these changes. As a result, a fully-funded WWWP does not mean that current levels of care and services will be maintained with these structural changes.
The 2013-2015 biennial budget allocated a total of $2,228,200 over the biennium to provide these preventive screenings. This amount has remained constant since 2009-2010.
The proposed budget fully funds the Wisconsin Well Woman Program at its current level ($2,228,200 annually). While fully funding the WWWP is essential and has been praised by advocates, drastic programmatic changes are ongoing outside of the budget process that threaten to undermine the program. (See section below for more information).
Governor Walker's Proposed Budget As Amended by the Joint Committee on Finance
As part of a larger motion to approve the Governor's proposal to eliminate a $70 annual fee charged to Wisconsin physicians to support data collection to study provider cost and quality, the Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) also voted to shift $100,000 from the physician assessment fund that is funded by the fee to the Wisconsin Well Woman Program. This would increase annual funding for the WWWP to $2,278,200.
Final 2015-2017 Wisconsin Well Woman Budget
The Legislature approved the Governor's proposed WWWP budget as amended by the JFC, which will provide $2,278,200 in annual funding for the program.
Although WWWP enrollment has declined since the introduction of the Affordable Care Act and creation of a federal Health Insurance Marketplace, WWWP provides essential preventive screenings to thousands (approximately 5,799 in 2014 according to DHS) of low-income women across Wisconsin. According to the National Cancer Institute, cervical cancer incidence and deaths are reduced by 80% with regular Pap screenings, and breast cancer deaths can be reduced by 15-20% with mammogram screenings. The recently implemented non-budgetary WWWP changes will have real consequences for the women who rely on WWWP for preventive screenings, as these women may have to change providers, change their medical home, and travel a greater distance to access these services due to a much smaller network of providers and coordinating agencies. In addition to WWWP changes, the state’s refusal to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid could mean that more low-income women who receive diagnoses through WWWP may not be able to access the treatment they need.