GREENFIELD – Bridge Primary is raising $20,000 in an effort to match a MassDevelopment grant that will allow the healthcare provider to move to a roughly 16,400-square-foot office in Greenfield and hire more doctors amid a regional primary care physician shortage.

When Dr. Dean Singer, one of three partners at the practice, opened Bridge Primary on Federal Street in 2021, it had only three employees. Now, the practice employs five healthcare providers and provides service to roughly 5,000 patients per year.

Singer said the Bridge Primary’s move to 55 Federal St, which is slated for completion early next year, will allow it not only to install medical equipment in each of its exam rooms, but double its provider staff to roughly eight to 10 healthcare providers over the next five years – a staff boost that aims to rectify a county-wide primary care physician shortage. 

“It's a little bit harder to attract people to live and work in this area compared to places like Amherst or Northampton or Boston just because of its rural nature, but there’s a shortage even in highly populated areas and cities,” Singer said. “It's more of an overall issue with the primary care system in general not having good enough support to the point where there's  a real shortage of medical professionals who want to work in primary care.”

In addition to ramping up its current one-provider-per-year hiring practices, Singer said the expansion of staff and space will allow Bridge Primarily to treat 10,000 to 15,000 patients each year.

In its 2023 “State of the Primary Care Workforce” report, the Health Resources and Services Administration projected a shortage of 68,020 physicians nationwide by 2036. HRSA reported that the shortage is more severe in rural and suburban areas.

Baystate Franklin’s 2022 Community Needs Assessment reports that in a regional survey of local public health officials, 72% of Franklin County respondents cited the limited availability of health care providers as the most pressing health issue facing their community.

“The limited availability of health care providers was already problematic prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has become acute since the onset of the pandemic,” the report states. This lack of providers has resulted in “long wait times, inability to get in to see one’s own doctor or forgoing service that is in short supply,” the report continues.

Other local primary care practices, such as Greenfield’s Valley Medical Group, have seen the shortage’s impact on the community. In an e-mail sent to patients on Sunday, Valley Medical listed a number of potential reasons for the shortage, such as lack of state and federal funding for primary care, and medical school graduates choosing more highly-paid fields.

Valley Medical Group also cited slower response times and a more challenging process for scheduling doctor’s appointments as some of the shortage’s immediate impacts for patients.

“Primary Care saves lives. Unfortunately, the number of practitioners and staff in the field are low and funding is lacking,” Valley Medical Group primary care doctors wrote. “We recognize these factors increase stress for you, our patients. We share your desire for more availability and time to address your needs.”

Singer noted that  large hospital systems and corporations, have, in-part “taken over” the medical field. He noted that Bridge Primary’s standing as a private and independent practice allows it more authority in where and how it operates.

“We are owned by the employees of this clinic, and we're not owned by any larger medical system, which means that we're able to be really innovative in terms of how we provide care to the community,” Singer said.

As of 1 p.m. Monday, Bridge Primary had already raised $1,910 out of the $20,000 it needs to match MassDevelopment’s funds by Aug. 21. 

“We're trying really hard to provide relationship-based care over people's lifetimes so people can really get to know us and we can really get to know them,” Singer said.

 Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.