ENT & Allergy Associates opening new clinic in Stevens Point

Rich Palzewic

Staff

March 3, 2025

NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN – In order to bring a more permanent presence into the communities it serves, Dr. David Edmondson with ENT & Allergy Associates said it was time to build a new space in Stevens Point.

Edmondson said the 10,700-square-foot building will open for business late this summer.

“We’ve been leasing space in Stevens Point for a long time, but we felt it was the best time to build another building and have more of a permanent presence,” he said. “It will be similar to our flagship building in Wausau.”

Edmondson said the walk-in allergy/ENT clinic at its Wausau location, and the one that will be in the new Stevens Point, are “unheard of.” 

“(Other than our Wausau location), I’ve never seen a walk-in allergy/ENT clinic ever,” he said. “I couldn’t even point one out.”

Edmondson said if your child wakes up with an earache before school, for example, ENT & Allergy Associates can help you – “in a more specific way.”

“Come on over, and we’ll get them on the appropriate medication and get you on your way,” he said.

Edmondson said the walk-in allergy/ENT clinic is way more specialized than your average busy walk-in clinic “where they get everything and anything off the street.”

“It’s entirely specialty-based. Think about your airways… we cover anything from your head down to your lungs,” he said.

According to the ENT & Allergy Associates website (entwausau.com), ENT services include:

• Ear infections
• Ear tubes
• Hearing loss
• Ringing in the ears
• Speech delay
• Ear pain
• Sinusitis
• Nasal fractures

• Deviated septum
• Sinus surgery
• Snoring
• Adenoidectomy
• Tonsillectomy
• Thyroid surgery
• Swallowing difficulty
• Voice disorders

Allergy and asthma services include:

• Allergic rhinitis/hay fever
• Asthma
• Sinusitis
• Indoor/outdoor allergies
• Food/drug allergies
• Stinging insect allergies
• Hives, eczema
• Recurrent infections

Wide reach

ENT & Allergy Associates’ satellite clinic in Stevens Point, Edmondson said, will stay open until everything gets moved over to the new building.

Edmondson said he and the other doctors at ENT & Allergy Associates had been thinking about opening a permanent location in Stevens Point “for quite some time.”

“I’m talking years ago,” he said. “It became quite evident our needs were outpacing our space requirements. ENT & Allergy Associates isn’t going anywhere – we’re here to stay, so we felt it was important to plant our flag in Stevens Point. It’s worth investing in a permanent space. We want to be open five days a week (in Stevens Point), not just a few days per week.”

Edmondson said they broke ground on the new clinic last September.

“We’re always open and keen to the idea of bringing services to wherever they are needed,” he said. “Having done this for so long, we know where that is.”

Edmondson said ENT & Allergy Associates is prepared to open more permanent offices elsewhere in the future.

“If you think about where our patients come from, it’s essentially from Portage to our south up to the U.P. (of Michigan to the north) – I’m talking Lake Superior in Michigan,” he said. “I’ll draw patients from Houghton and Marquette. They might not necessarily come to the Wausau clinic but another one closer to them.”

Edmondson said patients from Shawano to the east and Medford to the west also visit ENT & Allergy Associates.

“The footprint is quite large,” he said. “It might sound cliché, but it’s true – we really focus on care, value and outcomes. Health care is expensive, so when patients come in, we want to treat them with specialty care.”

Starting in a basement

Edmondson said the company was started as ENT Associates in 1969 by two ENTs who rented space in the basement of the eye clinic in downtown Wausau.

“They eventually grew and added more ENTs,” he said. “Through the 1980s, a theme developed where the ENTs spent a lot of time in town but also out of town at satellite clinics.”

In fact, Edmondson said back in the ’70s and ’80s, they had an ‘audio RV’ where they’d take audiology services on the road to the local community in an RV.

“You could get your hearing checked, get hearing aids, etc.,” he said.

Edmondson said ENT & Allergy Associates’ theme of “we go to communities to bring care” has been woven into its culture for the last 55 years of business.

“As it grew through the ’80s and ’90s, we were at the Wausau hospital and then opened a new building in 2006 – that’s when I came on when we added allergy immunology care,” he said. “By 2006, we had audiology, ENT and allergy immunology.”

Edmondson said when allergy immunology was added to the ENT specialty clinic in 2006, that was very rare.

“It was pretty groundbreaking,” he said. “There were a couple of groups in New York, but that was about it.”

Since that time, Edmondson said ENT & Allergy Associates has expanded a lot, mainly because the clinic can manage a lot of complicated medical diagnoses under one roof.

“We’ve got three specialties, so patients can come in with a chronic cough, for example, and we could have that ironed out within two hours,” he said.

Besides Wausau and Stevens Point, Edmondson said ENT & Allergy Associates has satellite offices in Medford, Rhinelander, Wisconsin Rapids and Crandon.

“The space in Crandon is with the Forest County Potawatomi Tribe – that’s been a great addition,” he said.

The Wausau location, Edmondson said, has 32,000 square feet of space.

Part of the community 

Edmondson said ENT & Allergy Associates isn’t just about treating patients.

“ENT & Allergy Associates sponsors and supports youth sports teams as well,” he said. “We sponsor hockey teams, curling, etc. When you’re throwing your (curling) stone down the ice and sweeping, you could be throwing over our logo. We sponsor what we can and do community events. We can do these things because we’re not corporate.”

Additional information on ENT & Allergy Associates can be found on its Facebook page.