Jessica Hauffe
Director of Government Affairs
Legislative priorities
WSNA’s focus during the 2025 legislative session is on nurse safety and patients' access to care.
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The 2025 legislative session in Olympia is expected to be largely focused on the state’s budget outlook. This year, WSNA is focused on several key issues directly impacting nurses’ ability to do their jobs safely and impacting access to care.
HB 1162 / SB 5162
In 2019, the Legislature passed a law on workplace violence (WPV) in hospitals requiring them to develop safety plans, safety trainings for employees, and an annual review of WPV related incidents. This work is carried out by WPV or safety committees. Our proposal would take the work being done by these WPV/safety committees to the next natural step by requiring a more regular and detailed review of WPV incident-related data by the committee, as well as required reporting of this data within the committee and annual updates to the safety plan based on this regular review of data. Our focus is on prevention, and our goal is to move the needle on WPV, as it has been trending upwards steadily over the last several years. This is one step of additional work that needs to be done around the issue of workplace violence.
Mergers and acquisitions between healthcare entities are prolific in Washington state. And now we are seeing private equity and hedge funds move into the healthcare space. Data shows that these transactions can negatively impact cost, quality, and access to necessary healthcare services, including protected healthcare services and healthcare affordability. Yet in Washington, these health entity consolidations receive minimal oversight, allowing large healthcare systems to dominate the market and dictate patients’ access to care and affordability. Nurses have seen time and again that this results in a reduction in staffing, support, and resources, or the complete elimination of lines of services. The goal is to assure accessibility and affordability of services and to ensure mergers, acquisitions, and contracted affiliations do not result in reduced access to quality, affordable care and services.
SB 5041
More than 30% of Americans have less than $400 in savings. Rather than negotiating a fair contract, some employers use this economic instability to force a strike. Washington should join New York, New Jersey and Maine in allowing workers to access unemployment insurance after more than two weeks on strike. This bill will help level the playing field, discourage economic hardship as a bargaining strategy, and promote good-faith contract negotiations.
School nurses are licensed nurses who work in schools to promote individual and population-based student health, provide care coordination, advocate for quality student-centered care, and advance academic success. Educational Staff Associate (ESA) certificates are issued by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to healthcare professionals that works in schools, including school nurses. The School Nurse ESA certificate requires a bachelor’s degree in nursing (BSN). It is important that Class 1 districts have an ESA-certificated school nurse so that they can serve the population health of the school district. Our proposed legislation would require that all Class I school districts (2,000+ students) employ at least one ESA certified school nurse in the district. The population health education and background that an ESA credentialed nurse has is critical to serving larger populations such as a school district. With this kind of background, the ESA certified nurse is able to provide proper guidance and have the appropriate education needed for a larger district. This is especially important in those districts where there isn’t always a school nurse on site.
Currently, commercial health plans withhold up to 15% of the reimbursement for services provided by advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNPs) and physician assistants (PAs). These insurance plans keep this as profit instead of using it to reduce premiums paid by patients and employers. This reduced reimbursement has led to clinic closures and reduces patient access to much needed care. This bill would require commercial insurance plans to reimburse ARNP and PA care at the same rate as physicians for the same services provided. Currently WA State Medicaid and WA Labor and Industries (L&I) reimburse ARNPs and PAs at 100% of the physician rate for the same services provided.