VERONA – The people waiting in the dark inside their parked cars for a free pop-up health clinic to open at Verona Area High School had differing stories and backgrounds. They were students, travelers and grandparents, housekeepers and caregivers.
One thing they shared: they were grateful.
Wisconsin was hosting its first Remote Area Medical clinic in the Madison suburb Aug. 1 and 2, where anyone who shows up can get medical, dental and vision care, free of charge. Patients need not show IDs or provide insurance. The waiting line opens around midnight, and people regularly camp out to get care.
Wayne Davis, who arrived in Verona July 30 from Marinette, was first in line. He said he hoped to get four teeth pulled and get his vision checked.
“The price is right, let’s put it that way,” he said.
Remote Area Medical, or RAM, has organized such pop-up health clinics across the country for about 40 years, and the hundred-plus people with appointments in Verona by about 9 a.m. Aug. 1 shows that the need grows ever more apparent. Some people who come to the clinic don’t have insurance. Others who do still find the price too high to get the care they sorely need.
Fewer than half of American adults reported that they were unable to afford health care in 2025, according to a June Gallup poll, a five-year low. That number is likely to keep dropping this year as millions of people have dropped out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace after federal subsidies that lowered prices have expired, driving premiums up.
In Wisconsin, about 17,000 fewer residents had signed up for marketplace insurance this January than in January 2025, the Journal Sentinel previously reported. Some have seen premiums rise hundreds of dollars a month.
RAM’s website says it has treated more than a million patients with the help of 246,000 volunteers, who come from near and far to offer their skills in medicine, optometry, dentistry, translating or simply guiding patients through the process.
Health care providers, all licensed to practice but working the clinic for free, spoke of frustration that they can’t fix the system. But they also found comfort in the fact that during the two-day clinic, at least, they could help some of the people who need it most.
Remote Area Medical turns Verona gym into doctor, dentist’s office
Volunteers had worked for hours the day prior to turn the gym into a makeshift medical clinic. Patients, who get a number when they arrive to mark their place in line, start by answering basic questions and having their vitals taken, then wait on bleachers for their turn to get treated.
Dental care is the most sought-after specialty, reflecting the more than 25% of U.S. adults who do not have dental insurance. By 9:15 a.m., the Verona clinic had reached capacity for the 60 dental appointments it had made for the day.
Angela, 63, who asked that only her first name be used, had taken the bus from Platteville to come to the clinic. When asked why she made the trip, she pulled down her bottom lip. For nearly two years, she said, her bottom teeth had been cracking and breaking apart. She receives supplemental security income, which is available to low-income adults and people with disabilities. Her insurance coverage had lapsed and wouldn’t pick up until September.
“I can’t deal with it anymore,” she said. “I’ll start pulling them out myself.”
The clinic in Verona had been in the works for years, said Catrin Adams, president of the Wisconsin Care Collective, a Dane County group that formed with the intention of hosting it. Adams, a nurse, had worked internationally before finding RAM nine-plus years ago. She likes the idea of providing free care closer to home.
“After doing it for all these people, I just really wanted (RAM) to be in our community,” Adams said.
RAM hosts about 75 pop-up clinics each year, as well as telehealth appointments in east Tennessee, where it’s based. Local groups like the Wisconsin Care Collective make the invitation and help find a venue, recruit hundreds of volunteers and raise a portion of the money – in the case of the Verona clinic, about $24,000, Adams said.
RAM funds the rest through private donors and grants, as well as corporate partnerships, according to Allison McCauley-Cook, the group’s media relations coordinator.
The services they can provide are wide-ranging, from teeth cleanings and youth sports physicals to pap smears and new glasses. People who need more extensive care after their visit are referred to services that can help get them appointments.
As dentists pulled teeth, optometrists fitted for glasses and physicians consulted on diagnoses, a handful of translators were busy helping Spanish-speaking patients through their appointments. Organizers were asking for more. About 9% of Dane County residents are Hispanic or Latino.
Pablo Quiroga, 31, of Middleton, said he primarily showed up for medical care but also took the opportunity to have his eyes checked, something he’s never done before. Quiroga doesn’t have health insurance and said the clinic was very helpful.
Free care a draw as health insurance costs grow
Joanne Barnes’s feet flexed in the dentist’s chair as oral surgeon Dr. Seth Ebben slid a needle into her gum to numb her mouth. The tiny movement was the only giveaway that it hurt.
Barnes, 66, said she’s terrified of needles. But the quick poke meant she was on her way to get her badly decayed bottom teeth extracted, something she’d driven hours from her home in Big Rapids, Michigan, to do. They were causing her far more pain.
“I’m just truly grateful for these people,” Barnes said. When Ebben checked in as he numbed her mouth, she responded the way she’d spoken to everyone else so far that morning: “I’m fine, honey.”
Barnes had arrived hours before the waiting line officially opened to make sure she would get seen. She had her top teeth extracted at a RAM clinic in her hometown in May.
As a child and young adult in New Zealand, she got dental check-ups every six months, she said, but since moving to the U.S. 25 years ago, she hasn’t gone once. Although she has dental insurance, the price she was quoted for the extractions – $12,000 – far exceeded what she could afford.
Dr. Richard Jun, a Madison-area optometrist, volunteered at his first RAM clinic a dozen years ago in West Virginia. As soon as he heard about the Verona clinic, he blocked off the dates on his calendar.
Though he’s glad for the opportunity to help, Jun said the clinics are “proof that our health care system is absolutely broken.”
“It makes me so sad that these things have to exist because of profit-driven health care systems,” he said. “It’s rough out there.”
Dr. Preetha Kumudiyara, a suburban Milwaukee pediatrician, was signed up to work the clinic and brought her daughter, Violet, and her friend Roslyn, both incoming freshmen, along. Both girls aspire to work in health care and had received CPR training earlier that morning.
“We live in a world where resources are so hard for people to access,” Kumudiyara said. “I signed up for this clinic almost a year ago … it’s just fulfilling in a way that I can’t explain.”
Just three hours into the clinic’s first day, 50 people had been booked for dental appointments, 52 for medical appointments and 27 for eye appointments, said Haleigh Henry, a RAM clinic coordinator. Henry said the turnout was “excellent” for the group’s first time in Wisconsin.
Adams, who runs the Wisconsin Care Collective, said she hopes to bring RAM back yearly to Dane County and eventually expand across the state.
“It’s a hard thing to believe in, I think, if you’ve never heard about it. ‘Free health care, yeah, right – what’s the catch?” she said. “I do think every year we’re going to grow … even if they come every year, there’s still going to be need.”
Madeline Heim covers health and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact her at 920-996-7266 or mheim@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Free pop-up health clinic comes to Wisconsin, drawing over 100 for care
Reporting by Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
