Tallgrass
Health Equity Fund

Chloe

I found a photo from when I met Dr. Marchant in 2018 and I have also included a photo from now. Night and day difference! Should I give all of the credit to Dr. Marchant? Of course not, and she wouldn’t want me to either. But I will say that she has changed my life for the better. Being able to continue seeing the doctor who has helped me to become my healthiest self, who has found new ways to calm my nervous system and relieve some of my daily pain, has lifted enormous amounts of weight off of my shoulders. At Tallgrass, Dr. Marchant is now able to provide better and more personalized care than ever. I am grateful for everyone who has contributed so that people like me can be treated by such a compassionate, thoughtful, and skilled physician.

Song

I moved to Madison in 2024 and haven't been able to establish much local sense of community yet. Not long after I arrived I was calling around to try and find a primary care doctor and waitlists were 6 to 12 months. A friend told me about Tallgrass and Dr Angela, and I was so relieved to be able to find not just primary care quickly, but good, thoughtful care that could take into account my complex health needs and also genuinely believed and welcomed my whole queer, fat, disabled, neurodivergent self.
 

When I found out I needed multiple surgeries, I was fretting about how to find transportation. Dr Angela mentioned the possibility of reaching out to the Tallgrass Community. At first I assumed this was just Midwestern niceness, but when my second surgery was rescheduled at the last minute, I took her up on this offer as well as the additional generous offer to organize a meal train.

It's hard to describe what a blessing the meal train has been. When I got home the day of surgery, not 10 minutes later I was greeted by the kind KN95-masked smile of a fellow Tallgrass comrade, bringing huge containers of delicious lentils, rice, and wraps. It was exactly what my body and mind needed to settle into a state of rest and repair. Each day for the week I looked forward to a new surprise--soups, salads, snacks, fruit, even a beautiful salmon grand finale. Equally as important as the food were those little bits of human contact: a warm greeting, a thoughtful list of ingredients, texted well-wishes, even a colorful card. Getting through surgery and recovery as an immunocompromised person living alone can be pretty hard and isolating, and I was so grateful for this meal train as an antidote–physically in terms of nourishment, but also mentally and emotionally, feeling connected to others and held in community.

For me this has also really reinforced the importance of Tallgrass, Dr Angela, and direct primary care as a model. A few times I sent friends out-of-state a picture of the day’s food and mentioned that my doctor organized a meal train, and some responses were pretty befuddled: “Your doctor??? What kind of doctor does that?! How do I get one?” As the systems around us bring accelerating harms and abandon more and more folks, it can be hard to envision real and practical alternatives. To have this experience of healthcare that actually centers care, in the context of community, is a glimpse of what might still be possible and a little taste of resistance. For that I’m especially grateful.

The Nordberg Family

We have been so grateful to be recipients of the health equity fund. 

We first started seeing Dr. Angela as our doctor in the fall of 2021, before her Direct Primary Care practice opened, and felt like we had hit the jackpot. A doctor who understands our queer family, and is knowledgeable in natural ways of supporting health, and on top of that, also has expertise in lactation - Dr. Angela is the perfect fit for our family. 

When we heard that Dr. Angela was starting her own Direct Primary Care practice, we were very excited. Benjamin is from Denmark, where there is never a bill for going to the doctor. Direct Primary Care just made so much more sense to him. 

But there was a huge question mark looming: could we afford to follow Dr. Angela to her new practice? Auden is in grad school and starting their own business, and so to make those long hours work, Benjamin is a stay at home father to our 2 year old. While we expect to have more resources in the future, we’re currently right at the poverty line, and paying for high quality medical care felt out of reach. 

The health equity fund has made it possible for us to stay with Dr. Angela, and also experience the full range of her care through Direct Primary Care. Instead of appointments where we had to strip all the clothes off of our baby to be touched by medical technicians without a chance to warm up to them, leaving one parent to attempt to talk with Dr. Angela over our baby’s cries and then end the appointment with a new person coming in to give her vaccinations, we now have the time to sit and play with toys and talk as if we were a guest in her home. Our child was vaccinated on her own terms, counting down herself for Dr. Angela to give her the injection. She now frequently asks, “Can Angela come over on Sunday?” (I’m not sure why she always says Sunday - toddlers say the funniest things.) 

I’ve also personally experienced a major difference in Dr. Angela’s care compared to other providers in the traditional model. I find getting gynecological care somewhat stressful, and particularly uncomfortable with the lack of provider knowledge of trans health, and so I prefer to have someone with me to gynecological appointments. Some providers have interpreted my discomfort as a sign of domestic violence, and sitting through their questionnaire has only added to the discomfort (although I do acknowledge that it is important to screen for). Under Dr. Angela’s care, it was far more comfortable than before, as my partner was welcomed to support me, and my toddler was allowed to jump around the room, and I never had to explain my existence. 

We look forwards to the day when we are able to contribute back to the health equity fund, so that others who find it out of reach can experience knowledgeable and compassionate care from Dr. Angela.

Pedro

Pedro and his family have been grateful to receive care at Tallgrass. Without insurance, they have found that direct primary care has been significantly more affordable for them than the insurance based system. After a two month hospitalization with a life threatening infection, we are so grateful Pedro is healing well. However, he has a mountain of medical bills as he is uninsured and now not able to work. In addition to using our health equity funds to offset their family's membership, many folks in our extended Tallgrass community participated in a fundraising drive to support their family as Pedro has been unable to work thorugh his illness.