Have you recently tried to schedule a primary care appointment only to find that nearby in-network providers aren’t accepting new patients? Further, you learn the next available appointment may be days, weeks or longer away, and you may need to travel to find another option.
Unfortunately, you would not be alone in this uncomfortable experience. The current reality for many of us is provider shortages are a growing challenge in Wisconsin and across the country. An aging population and more people needing care are putting pressure on a healthcare workforce that isn’t growing at the same pace.
Today, more than half of Wisconsin’s 72 counties are considered health professional shortage areas (HPSAs).
These are circumstances we don’t want to see because when people have difficulty getting the care they need, costs and absenteeism increase, and ultimately people cannot show up the way they want.
The question for all of us to ask ourselves is “What are the root causes of this set of circumstances in our communities, and what can we do about it?”
Access is a Shared Responsibility
We need to think differently about what we want to see from all of us involved in healthcare.
We want employees to use preventive and primary care services more consistently; we want employers to make high-value care easier to access, and we want providers to look for collaborative opportunities to open access to appointments.
This means asking a broader question: How can we increase access, maintain or improve quality, and make healthcare more affordable everyone at the same time?
Look at What’s Already Happening
The Alliance has been having conversations with employers, healthcare providers, and other organizations about what this looks like in practice.
Some of those conversations are happening with rural healthcare systems. That’s not because provider shortages and access challenges are exclusively rural problems. It’s because these organizations are interested in trying something new and working differently.
For example, Reedsburg Area Medical Center (RAMC) and La Valle Telephone Cooperative worked together to bring healthcare closer to employees. That effort has grown into a clinic that serves the broader community, with additional partnerships supporting mental and behavioral health services and a preferred rate for dialysis.
It’s an interesting example because the starting point wasn’t simply, “How do we lower the cost of healthcare?” It was, “What does our community need, and what can we do together?”
This is the conversation we need to keep having.
The Alliance is also working with the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative and its member health systems, including Sauk Prairie Healthcare, RAMC, Grant Regional Health Center, Southwest Health, and Prairie Ridge Health, to explore new ways employers and providers can work together including looking at claims and clinical data together to identify opportunities to improve outcomes for employers, providers, and patients.
We’re having conversations about primary care models, including direct primary care. We’re supporting efforts such as Sauk Prairie Healthcare’s acquisition of Prairie Clinic and the onsite clinic serving Sauk Prairie Schools. We’re continuing our work with RAMC, which has helped generate interest and support from Nordic Group, including Seats, Inc. and Flambeau.
And we’re talking with providers beyond Wisconsin, including Winona Health, Rachelle Schultz, and Jessica Remington, about bundled payment and value-based care approaches that could create better alignment between cost, quality, and outcomes.
None of these examples represent a final solution. We don’t have all the answers. But these are interesting examples that are worth paying attention to.
We Don’t Need One Perfect Solution
What works in one community may not work in another. That’s okay.
But we should be willing to try something, listen to the people affected, learn from the results, and work to make our circumstances better for us all.
Consider Gamber-Johnson’s partnership with Anovia Health to create an onsite clinic employees can use at no cost to them. The approach, centered on direct primary care, helped Gamber-Johnson save more than $600,000 in 2025.
That doesn’t mean every employer should build an onsite clinic.
It means we should be curious.
- Why is healthcare delivered the way we experience it today?
- Why is it priced this way?
- What are the current needs of our community?
- What could we do differently to meet the needs at a competitive rate?
Those are questions employers and providers can answer better together than they can separately.
Keep the Conversation Moving
Meaningful healthcare change won’t come from one organization, one health system, or one solution.
It will come from employers, providers, and communities working together, experimenting, listening, and learning from each other.
That is why The Alliance is interested in working with all types of organizations that are willing to try something different. The examples above may not be the ultimate solutions. But they are creating positive change, and we want to see more of that this year.
We can be good fiduciary citizens by asking better questions, learning from what others are trying, and being helpful in the conversation.
If you’re an employer, provider, or other organization interested in exploring a different approach to healthcare, I’d be happy to hear from you.
The circumstances may be challenging. But they also create opportunities.
