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The Portland-based health insurance company has proposed funding the start-up costs for a nonprofit consortium that would work to recruit faculty and raise cash to fund new medical residencies in the state, the number of which have been largely frozen in place by a 1997 federal law that doesn’t give Oregon its fair share.

Though the death rate from COVID-19 has dropped since the pandemic hit, the hospital system wants to be prepared if there is an overflow of deaths.

How insurance companies pay providers, how universities work with hospitals, how accrediting bodies set requirements, and how students pay for medical school are all factors in workforce challenges that are especially severe in rural areas.