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40% of FQHCs can’t fill positions for 6+ months. This is unsustainable.
New NACHC data just dropped, and the numbers are staggering.
Rural FQHCs face a 39% primary care physician shortfall RIGHT NOW. Not in 2030. Not in 2035. Today.
92% of rural counties are designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas. 199 counties have ZERO physicians. Yet these same FQHCs serve 42 million Americans who have nowhere else to go.
The math doesn’t work anymore.
HRSA projects physician supply will meet only 68% of rural demand by 2037. Meanwhile, FQHCs battle 32% annual turnover rates while competing against tech companies offering double the salary and half the stress.
Here’s what’s actually happening on the ground:
• Nurse practitioners are becoming the backbone, with HRSA projecting 104% primary care adequacy when including NPs and PAs
• Michigan and other states are expanding NP scope of practice despite physician pushback
• Congress allocated $440 million to the National Health Service Corps, but only 40% of rural counties have an NHSC clinician
• Teaching Health Centers got $225 million to train residents in FQHCs, increasing $25 million annually through 2029
But money alone won’t fix this.
FQHCs are getting creative. Loan forgiveness programs. Work-life balance initiatives. Community integration efforts to make rural practice attractive. Some are partnering with residency programs to build their own pipeline.
The real question: Can nurse practitioners and physician assistants fill the void fast enough?
With 84% of NHSC clinicians staying post-service, there’s hope. But when nearly half of FQHCs can’t fill positions for half a year, we’re one crisis away from collapse.
This isn’t just a workforce problem. It’s an access problem. When FQHCs fail, 42 million Americans lose their only healthcare option.
We need radical solutions. Fast.
♻️ Repost if FQHCs deserve the workforce they need to serve America’s most vulnerable
👉 Follow me, Jonathan Govette, for daily, real-time updates on healthcare technology and business news. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathangovette/
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Author:
CEO/Co-Founder @ Oatmeal Health | AI Lung Cancer Screening | Almost Became a Doctor | Engineer | Follow to Share What I’ve Learned Along the Way
I help patients get the care they need earlier, preventing late-stage cancer.
That’s been the throughline across three companies and almost 20 years in healthcare. At ReferralMD, we fixed broken referral networks so patients didn’t fall through the cracks. At Oatmeal Health, it’s lung cancer: building the diagnostic and screening infrastructure so the 85% of cases caught too late get caught early instead.
Today as CEO of Oatmeal Health, I lead a team embedding AI into radiology workflows to turn routine lung CT scans into reimbursable cancer risk assessments. We partner with FQHCs to reach underserved communities, and with health systems and payers to make early detection economically sustainable. Think HeartFlow or Cleerly, but for lungs.
Between companies, I advised at Techstars and Plug and Play, mentoring founders building in digital health. That experience shaped how I think about what separates companies that ship from companies that stall: distribution, reimbursement, and clinical trust, not just technology.
I’m a CancerX alumnus, a 3x healthcare founder, and someone who believes the biggest problems in cancer aren’t scientific. They’re operational.
We’re hiring mission-driven builders at Oatmeal Health. If you want to work on something that matters, reach out.
When I’m not working, I’m traveling, mentoring, and keeping up with one very energetic husky. 🐾
Substack – The Oatmeal Bite:
Millions of patients get less care because of who they are, where they live, or how they look. I’m fighting to change that. CEO @OatmealHealth, a startup built for the underserved. The Oatmeal Bite: intel for clinicians, investors, and advocates.
Jonathan Govette
CEO of Oatmeal Health
Substack:
https://oatmealhealthjonathangovette.substack.com/
