CHEYENNE — Wyoming is projected to lose 335 physicians by 2030 while simultaneously needing an additional 104 primary care doctors, according to figures cited Wednesday on the Wyoming House floor.
Rep. Jacob Wasserburger brought House Bill 129, the Expanding Physician Access Act, to lawmakers with an urgent appeal.
“Across Wyoming, families are waiting too long for care. Rural communities struggle to recruit physicians. Clinics close, and patients have to drive hours for basic services,” Wasserburger, R-Cheyenne, told the House. “The shortage is real, and it affects the health, safety and the economic stability of our nation... 18 out of 23 counties have a health professional shortage as well."
The fix offered in HB 129 is a mechanism for welcoming more internationally trained physicians to Wyoming’s clinics and hospitals.
The bill passed its introduction vote 60-0, with two members excused, and was assigned to the House Labor Committee. No members spoke in opposition.
Wyoming’s shortage mirrors a national pattern. More than one-quarter of all practicing physicians in the U.S. received their medical degrees from schools outside the country, according to the American Immigration Council.
Those 247,449 foreign-trained doctors are concentrated where the need is greatest: in communities where more than 30% of residents live below the federal poverty line, nearly one-third of all doctors are foreign-trained. In areas where per-capita income falls below $15,000 a year, that figure climbs to 42.5%.
Nearly a third of all physicians specializing in family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics — the primary-care backbone of rural America — trained abroad, according to the report.
And western states, including Wyoming, have the lowest share of foreign-trained physicians of any region in the country, even as western counties face some of the nation’s most severe doctor shortages across vast geographic distances.
Structured Pathway
HB 129 creates a provisional license pathway for internationally trained physicians who hold foreign medical degrees, have maintained good standing with their licensing country for at least five years, demonstrate English fluency, pass the first two steps of the U.S. medical licensing exam and clear an international criminal background check.
Physicians who completed a residency abroad must also have five additional years of post-residency practice; those without a residency need 12 years of post-degree experience.
During the first year, a provisionally licensed physician must work in the same physical facility as a board-approved supervising physician and can only prescribe controlled substances with the supervisor’s co-signature.
After the first year, the supervisor must be available within 15 minutes by phone or video. After three years of clean practice and passage of the third step of the licensing exam, provisional holders can convert to a full, unrestricted Wyoming medical license.
“This bill offers a responsible, carefully structured solution,” Wasserburger told his fellow House members. “It creates a provisional license pathway for internationally trained physicians who are already experienced, already licensed, and in good standing in their home countries and who meet rigorous standards.”
“Wyoming cannot afford to leave qualified physicians on the sidelines while patients wait for care,” he said.
Statewide Backing
The state’s leading medical organizations lined up behind the bill.
“The Wyoming Medical Society has been unwavering in our support of measures that aim to increase access to quality, evidence-based healthcare,” said Executive Director Sheila Bush. “Wyoming patients deserve timely access to care, and WMS applauds efforts that take meaningful steps to strengthen our physician workforce. We are cautiously optimistic about the potential that House Bill 129 could have in helping to address those needs. We appreciate HB 129’s measured approach with a clear focus on important safeguards that prioritize patient safety.”
The head of the Wyoming Hospital Association offered a broad perspective on the challenges faced by facilities around the state.
“There is a national shortage, and Wyoming is a microcosm of the nation, but recruiting and retaining doctors into Wyoming is difficult because of the rural nature of our state,” said WHA President Eric Boley. “It is estimated that the U.S. will have a shortage of over 200,000 family practice doctors within the next decade. We have very few foreign doctors in the state but would be happy if we could bring in highly trained and qualified providers.”
The hospital association worked directly with Wasserburger in drafting the bill, Boley said.
Price Transparency
Boley is also backing a second piece of health care legislation this session. Senate File 57, the Hospital Price Transparency Act, sponsored by Sen. Evie Brennan, R-Cheyenne, would require every Wyoming hospital to publicly post standard charges for all items and services, including gross charges, negotiated rates with individual insurance companies, minimum and maximum negotiated charges, and discounted cash prices.
The bill mandates that hospitals list prices for at least 300 shoppable services on their websites, free of charge and without requiring patients to create accounts or submit personal information. Hospitals that fail to comply after receiving a corrective action plan from the Department of Health face daily civil penalties — $100 per day for a first offense at critical access hospitals, escalating to $1,000 per day for repeat violations or larger facilities.
“We believe there is some desire by consumers to be able to research and check prices before receiving services from our hospitals,” Boley said, adding that Brennan’s bill takes “a very practical approach to this issue.”
Keeping Doctors
Even as Wyoming works to attract new physicians from abroad, the state’s residency programs are producing homegrown success stories, according to the Wyoming Medical Society.
The University of Wyoming Family Medicine Residency programs in Casper and Cheyenne recently graduated five doctors who all chose to stay and practice in the state — from Buffalo to Worland to Thermopolis.
Their paths to Wyoming vary widely. A fly-fishing trip to the Wind River Range about 12 years ago left Tommy Foster with what he called “an undeniable feeling that this is where I wanted to spend the rest of my life.”
He changed careers entirely, went to medical school, and now practices family medicine and obstetrics at Lander Medical Clinic, focusing on mental health and substance abuse alongside primary care.
One of the graduates came home. Philip Gard grew up in Riverton and returned after medical school in Pennsylvania and residency in Casper, completing his final two years of training through a Rural Training Track in Thermopolis. He stayed on with Hot Springs Health to provide full-spectrum care in the community where he was raised.
Others arrived as outsiders and never left. Kristi St. Clair came from small-town Georgia planning to return to the South after residency. Three years in Cheyenne — including covering the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo — changed her mind.
She now works in Worland covering the family medicine clinic, labor and delivery and emergency room shifts, while living in Ten Sleep at the base of the Bighorn Mountains.
A critical gap in maternal care across rural Wyoming caught the attention of Sreedivya “Divya” Veturi during her residency in Casper. She pursued advanced obstetrics fellowship training and is now returning to practice alongside her former mentors, with a focus on high-risk maternity care in underserved communities.
And a former firefighter, ski patroller and river guide fell in love with Buffalo during a residency rotation. Alex Bergeron now practices emergency and hospital medicine at Johnson County Healthcare Center.
“Wyoming has been very good to me,” St. Clair told Wyoming Medicine Magazine in its fall 2025 issue, “and I hope to repay the favor.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
