From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Dr. Angie Ingraham, founder of True North Patient Advocates.
Ingraham is a former trauma surgeon and critical care physician who now works as a board-certified independent patient advocate, helping people navigate the healthcare system. Although she is based in Madison, she has clients across the country.
The conversation explores Ingraham’s motivation for launching the company about a year ago, after serving as an advocate for her father before he died of brain cancer in 2021.
“We found that I could help him in ways that others couldn’t in navigating the healthcare system, and all the challenges that we had during his illness,” she said. “And from that, I found professional patient advocacy.”
She discusses how she guides her clients through various aspects of getting medical care, from seeking second opinions to accompanying them to doctors’ appointments, as well as helping with transitions of care, finding long-term care options and addressing billing and insurance hurdles.
“I’ve helped some of my clients appeal Medicare denials in order to get their rehab stays covered, for example,” she said. “So every client and family is unique, and I tailor my services to meet those needs.”
Her company’s growth so far has largely been driven by word-of-mouth connections, along with some help from professional organizations that assist patients in finding advocates. There are currently no licensure requirements for her profession, allowing her to work with clients anywhere in the United States.
“For the ones who are local, I do go in person with them to doctor’s appointments or provider appointments if they want,” she said. “For the ones who are out of state, I would fly there if they want me to, but we can do a lot virtually and a lot over the phone … there’s lots of ways you can serve as an advocate for someone.”
In addition to her work with True North Patient Advocates, Ingraham is a board member for the nonprofit HealthAdvocatex and a member of the National Association of Healthcare Advocacy and the Alliance for Professional Health Advocates.
Listen to the podcast here and see the full list of WisBusiness podcasts.
— The latest WMC survey found broad support for policies to “strengthen” hospital price transparency requirements as healthcare costs for employers continue to rise.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce this week rolled out more results from its latest Wisconsin Employer Survey, putting a spotlight on business concerns around the cost of providing healthcare.
When asked about policies to strengthen hospital price transparency requirements in the state “so employers and patients can better understand and compare healthcare costs before receiving care,” 85% said they strongly support them and 11% said they somewhat support them.
Just 4% said they neither supported or opposed them, and no respondents were opposed.
Rachel Ver Velde, associate vice president of government relations for WMC, says healthcare is the only industry where consumers and patients don’t know how much services cost before receiving them.
“Two patients can receive the same procedure yet face dramatically different bills, creating confusion for families and employers alike,” she said in a statement. “By advancing meaningful price transparency legislation, Wisconsin can create a more affordable system that puts patients first.”
When asked what state government could do to help their business, 39% of respondents said it should make healthcare more affordable. That was followed by reducing taxes at 23% and reducing or reforming regulations at 19%, while all other responses were at 6% or lower.
Of the respondents that provide healthcare benefits for their employees, 93% said their healthcare costs increased this year. Six percent said they stayed the same and 1% said they decreased. The most common range for that increase was 6-10%, with more than 40% of respondents.
WMC also asked those with higher healthcare costs to list related factors, and 88% pointed to higher costs from providers, followed by 51% pointing to higher drug costs.
The group surveyed 196 employers from May 6-29 through traditional mail and an online survey, including companies that make up a “representative sample” of its membership and the state’s business community.
For more of the latest news on the state economy and Wisconsin businesses from startups to industry leaders, sign up today for a free two-week trial of the daily morning news report from WisBusiness.com.
— UW-Madison Prof. Owen Tamplin’s work to better understand how certain rare cancers develop has been complicated by uncertainty around federal research funding, as highlighted in a recent article in the university’s alumni magazine.
Tamplin, an assistant professor in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, is using embryonic zebra fish to model brain tumor development in hopes of shedding light on this process and enabling earlier detection.
His work has implications for patients like Owen Petrzelka, who died in 2020 at age 6 after being diagnosed with a rare cancer known as diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG. Both his story and Tamplin’s research were the focus of “The Two Owens,” published in the summer 2026 edition of “On Wisconsin.”
While Tamplin’s research through the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research could help scientists grasp why DIPG happens and in which patients, he has encountered new hurdles with federal grant funding under the Trump administration.
The article highlights the challenges health researchers face when confronted with uncertainty at the federal level about funding support for ongoing projects, as well as how they’re rising to meet them.
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