(The Center Square) – There is some good news in the latest report on Wisconsin’s healthcare workforce.
The Wisconsin Hospital Association released its 2025 Workforce Report recently, and it said hospitals across the state have closed their employment gap over the past few years.
“The health care workforce continues to stabilize,” the report noted. “But significant shortages remain – a status upgrade that could be reported this year as ‘serious, but stable.’”
The report says health care employment is up 8% since 2019, but there continue to be more open jobs than available workers.
“One in 10 hospital jobs posted remained unfilled,” the report notes. “Double digit vacancy rates remain in 6 of 18 professions.”
The Hospital Association says those vacancies will become more of a problem as Wisconsin’s population gets older, and in turn, relies on health services more.
“Aging creates the need not just for more health care, but a higher intensity of health care. Care that could be provided in an outpatient setting for younger people often requires a hospital stay or a greater number of diagnostic services or clinical interventions for older individuals,” the Hospital Association wrote. “The cost of this higher intensity care is often not recognized by payers or the algorithms or averages they utilize to approve care.”
Payers and payments are another huge worry for the WHA.
The report notes a growing gap between what it costs hospitals to prove care, and what the government or private insurers pay.
“In Wisconsin, government payers, Medicare and Medicaid, already account for close to two-thirds of hospital revenues and this will only increase as our population ages,” the report states, “In Wisconsin in 2023, Medicaid reimbursed hospitals 37% below their actual cost to provide care; Medicare was 26% short.”
The report doesn’t provide a dollar amount for that gap.
But the WHA does warn that if the gap is not closed there will be “pressure on the health care workforce, service availability and patient access” across the state.
The report ends with several recommendations for Wisconsin lawmakers including “support educational and occupational pathways, break down barriers, and to use technology for the benefit of patients and the health care workforce.”
