Worcester Business Journal

20 Worcester Business Journal | November 3, 2025 | wbjournal.com tion of them offering direct patient care, according to a January report released by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. Part of the issue of primary care des- erts, felt most in rural areas, is due to the number of physicians closing their private practices, said Penney. e share of physicians who consol- idated under a hospital system grew by 18 percentage points to 47% between 2012 and 2024, largely due to unsatis- factory payment rates, according to a study released in September by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. e Gardner region has seen a num- ber of private practices close in the past couple of years, and area hospitals have had a hard time recruiting physicians, said Penney. Rural settings are less attractive to applicants to begin with, and doctors at smaller hospitals need to be on-call more oen, another knock against them, she said. In December, an Athol private practice with 5,000 patients closed, a factor which may have contributed to Heywood's Athol Hospital experi- encing a 6% in- crease in ED visits year over year, compared to Heywood Hospital in Gardner, which had a 3% increase. Patients postpone care when they don't have equitable access to primary care providers, and thus, they oen end up developing acute conditions that land them in hospital EDs, con- tributing to longer wait times, Penney said. is dearth in access will only inten- sify once Medicaid cuts are enacted. While estimates range, officials and governing bodies anticipate hun- dreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents will lose their health coverage due to Medicaid cuts outlined in the President Donald Trump Administra- tion's Big Beautiful bill, passed in July. In May, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey projected more than 250,000 would lose coverage while the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee in June estimated up to 326,262. With delayed care and limits to food due to slashes in SNAP benefits, more Central Mass. residents will need care, showing up to the one place they legal- ly cannot be turned away from. "ey will just show up in the emergency rooms. ey're going to be sicker," said Penney. Economy UMass Memorial Medical Center, more than 30 miles from NVMC, has seen a 3% increase in its ED volume. "ree percent is an additional 3,000 patients annually, which is not insignifi- cant," said Precourt. Outside of the UMass Memorial system, Emerson Hospital in Concord, about 17 miles from the former Ayer facility, has experienced a more than 10% increase in its ED volume between fiscals 2024 and 2025, said Christine Schuster, Emerson president and CEO. While NVMC's closure is not solely responsible for that entire increase, through zip code analysis, Emerson has identified a surge in patients accessing the facility from Nashoba Valley. "As late as last week [we had] over 25 patients waiting for beds in our emer- gency department," said Schuster. "And we think it just continues to grow." When NVMC shut down, Emerson set up a landing page on its website spe- cifically to help Nashoba Valley patients transition their care. Emerson has been working closely with local EMS, attempting to make the hospital's wall times as short as possible, reducing the time between when EMS drops off a patient and when they are able to get back on the road. "We understand the strain they're under," said Schuster. Groton's fire department had been receiving an increased number of calls before NVMC even shut down, said Cheeks, and the problem has grown. e year prior to NVMC's closure, Groton's fire depart- ment had experienced a 13% increase in calls compared to 2022. Last year, that figure increased by 17%, totalling over 1,700 calls, and in 2025, the department is tracking approximately an additional 15% increase. "e number of requests for services aren't diminish- ing; it's not slowing down. And for the surrounding towns, they're feeling the same thing," said Cheeks. In 2024, the fire de- partment added two new firefighters, who are cross- trained as EMTs, allowing the department to keep its response times the same: between five and seven minutes. Still, the depart- ment spent all of its overtime budget last year, a figure Christine Schuster, president and CEO of Emerson Hospital Continued from previous page between $160,000 and $200,000, to fill in the gaps. "You can't treat a patient and drive at the same time. So we hit this dire need for more staffing," Cheeks said. e department relies on mutual aid with neighboring municipalities and volunteer firefighters when patient de- mand outpaces capacity. But volunteer firefighters are responding from their homes and must travel to the fire station first before heading to a fire. If one isn't available, firefighters have to work alone. "A lot of this is affecting the next call. ER demand rising The volume of patients entering emergency departments is increasing throughout the state, with specific Central Massachusetts facilities seeing an increase in part due to Nashoba Valley Medical Center's closure in August 2024. Year-over-year increase in Hospital emergency department patient volume Emerson Hospital, in Concord >10% UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, in Clinton and Athol Approximately 10% Athol Hospital 6% UMass Memorial Medical Center, in Worcester 3% Heywood Hospital, in Gardner 3% Sources: Individual hospitals But if nobody comes back for station coverage, now you're getting a response of one person," said Cheeks. New ED, more problems Aer meeting with fire and emergen- cy response chiefs like Cheeks, UMass Memorial Health in Worcester decided to open a Nashoba Valley emergency department in the wake of NVMC's clo- sure. Located at 490 Main St. in Groton, the satellite ED is set to open at the very end of 2026 or in January 2027. Equipped with x-ray, lab, and CAT scan services, the facility can treat any condition a patient would typically visit an emergency department for, said Precourt. "e one thing it cannot do is house patients who need inpatient care," he said. In those cases, the ED will use ambulance contracts to transport patients to neigh- boring hospitals instead of relying on municipal re- sponse. In the case of critical need, UMass will use its Life Flight program to transport patients via helicopter. While the new ED will alleviate some of the existing wait times and challenges for residents, Penney from Heywood said there will still be a greater demand for healthcare services than the region has supply. One of the most critical healthcare challenges facing the region is the primary care shortage, she said. While Massachusetts has the third-largest number of primary care physicians per-capita, the state has the fih-lowest share in the na- UMass will use contract ambulances for its new ED in order to not put extra strain on municipal emergency response teams. PHOTO | ALLAN DINES W

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