In its latest Wisconsin Health Care Workforce Report, the Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) said the state’s health care workforce must grow more rapidly to meet an aging population’s needs, according to WisBusiness. The group says Wisconsin’s hospitals are already seeing a few signs of improvement, with lessening vacancies and stabilizing turnover due to efforts to bolster the industry’s labor pool.
The report highlights care providers working to retain current workers, bring new workers into the field and “recruit those who left” for other industries. WHA also argues that to “sustain this comeback,” health care professionals and officials in government and education should “leverage innovative technologies to achieve greater efficiencies and create better connections with patients while removing regulatory barriers and constraints that inhibit entry into the workforce, impede care delivery and consume … workforce time, energy and resources.”
According to the report, Medicare and Medicaid make up almost two-thirds of hospital revenues, and a growing facet of older Wisconsinites will push that trend forward. However, the Medicaid program reimbursed Wisconsin hospitals 37% below the cost of providing care in 2023, with Medicaid 26% lower.
Private insurance, which previously has helped make up for the shortfall, has seen lagging reimbursement with a rise in costs for supplies, drugs and labor, and insurance premiums have been rising faster than hospital prices — 6.7% compared to 2.6% in 2023, respectively.
The full report is available here.
