Frederica Freyberg:

The work force shortage impacting the lion’s share of the job market is slamming pharmacies. With the added workload of providing vaccinations and booster shots, the crisis-level shortage of pharmacists and technicians is leaving some to turn patients away or wait days for a prescription to be filled but the shortage could be alleviated. The Pharmacy Society of Wisconsin says more than 200 pharmacists have experienced severe delays in their licensing processing preventing them from working. It’s not just pharmacists. Nurses, therapists, and other professions are feeling the frustration. For answers as to why this is happening, we turn to the new secretary-designee of the Department of Safety and Professional Services in charge of approving these licenses. Dan Hereth joins us now and thank you very much for being here.

Dan Hereth:

Absolutely. Thank you, Frederica, for allowing me some time to join you today. This issue is certainly one that’s near and dear to our hearts at the agency. Licensing folks throughout Wisconsin is a responsibility that we take incredibly seriously. You know, we are certainly in some uncertain times — have been for a few years now — and the most recent iteration of that is work force shortages. We certainly at the department experienced those. Those out there in our communities are experiencing those. You know, record high labor force participation, record low unemployment, those are good things, but they leave us with new challenges to face, and, certainly, we’re working towards that. At our agency, we work with over 240 unique credentials. Over the last six years, licensing volume has been increasing dramatically every year. Over 100% increase in that timeframe, and while we are proud of the progress we’ve been making as of this year, we’re issuing licensing 40% faster than we’ve ever issued them in the history of our department. We are licensing more people annually than we’ve ever licensed in the history of the department. We certainly know that there’s more work to do, and part of that work is our budget, and so the last two budget cycles, we requested some additional positions. Those requests certainly haven’t been fully met, and we’re going to request more positions in this budget cycle because, as you well know, serving our folks here in the state of Wisconsin is a top priority.

Frederica Freyberg:

So I want to circle back to some of the points you’ve made, but, first, what can you tell people wanting to work in their field, but they’re still waiting for their license?

Dan Hereth:

You know, my best advice is always to log in to the system, particularly for folks who applied in our brand-new system licensee. Again, the — that technology combined with some of our efforts internally have allowed us to issue licenses 40% faster, but with the uptick in volume, we definitely need more help in terms of positions to be able to move that forward.

Frederica Freyberg:

In fact, you describe having been critically short staffed there at the agency. Describe how many people have been handling what kind of volume of applications and inquiries.

Dan Hereth:

Yeah. Absolutely. So as of about six years ago, there was on an annual basis anywhere from about 25,000 to 30,000 licenses that were applied for. In the recent biennium, that number crept up to over 60,000. Unfortunately, just like the labor shortages hitting employers across the state, it’s hitting our agency, too, and short-term employment is not something that makes sense for a lot of people in this environment. So that’s why in our recent budget, we’re requesting an additional 30 FTE to allow us both to communicate better with applicants who have questions or need help moving through the process, but also, then, to process things.

Frederica Freyberg:

So the agency went to an online license application process, I believe, it was just this past spring, but the pharmacy society tells us they’ve got 200 applications in the pipeline right now saying the new system does not seem to have helped the delays. What’s your response to that?

Dan Hereth:

Yeah. You know, I think at this point in the year, there’s always going to be license holders in some — or perspective license holders in some stage of the process. Licensing is — is, as you may be aware, not necessarily a vending machine-type process. It is iterative. It often involves multiple steps that are dependent on one another, and so with the new system, I can tell you that the numbers bare out. We’re licensing people 40% faster, so we went from a 76-day average historically down to now a 45-day average in 2022.

Frederica Freyberg:

It’s funny, the 76-day average or the 45-day average, I mean, we had been hearing reports of people waiting months for their license.

Dan Hereth:

Yeah. You know, I hear those things too, and I find oftentimes when people come to me with particular concerns, and I get e-mails directly from applicants asking for assistance, the reality is oftentimes if we’ve been waiting months, there are a variety of factors that can impact that, whether it’s time it takes to move through the testing process with national exams or it’s time that it takes to get documentation to the department. Our goal at the department is to move through the incoming information as fast as possible, and the reality is, as I’ve said several times, we need additional staff to do that. Now, in terms of those folks, the other part of that equation is at the end of the day, some folks need additional assistance to move through the process. It’s not always clear to everybody what the steps are or what may be the missing piece for them, and that’s why the communications aspect is so critical. We have, and we’ve asked for staff in the past. We have six FTE to answer roughly 5,000 to 10,000 phone calls in a given week. Obviously, that math does not work. We’ve requested staff to do just that in past budgets and are going to request those staff again in this next budget.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if short-staffed hospitals can’t put nurses back to work and pharmacists can’t potentially fill prescriptions in a timely fashion, or therapists can’t start their new job because they are waiting for their license, what kind of burden does this continuing kind of license log jam put on those who need care?

Dan Hereth:

You know, certainly, it’s something, again, as I stated when we started the conversation, that we all take personally. Serving the citizens of Wisconsin is a top priority, and that’s why we move quickly to implement the new licensee, which has aided us in dropping license times significantly, and, you know, it’s going to take all of us working together to allow the agency to serve the folks in the way they need to be served.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, Secretary-designee Dan Hereth, thanks very much.

Dan Hereth:

Absolutely, thank you.