Mars Hill Health Center to close August 1st

MARS HILL, Maine (WAGM) - A.R. Gould recently announced that their primary care clinic in Mars Hill will be closing, we brought you that story last night. News Source 8 reporter Isaac Potter speaks with the CEO of AR Gould to learn more about what went into this decision and what the next steps are for patients.

Patients of the Mars Hill Health Center will now have to look for a new primary care center. Northern Light Health AR Gould Hospital has announce it will be closing its primary care practice in Mars Hill effective August 1st, 2022. According to President of AR Gould Hospital, Greg LaFrancois, the decision behind closing the care center in Mars Hill is staffing shortages and the challenges of regular provider coverage at the clinic. LaFrancois says this was a difficult decision to make.

Greg LaFrancois, President of A.R. Gould Hospital, mentions “The utilization has always been low at the health center. This has been an action that we have tried to delay as much as we could over the last two years it was considered. We just lost a provider, they will be gone at the end of July. We have had difficulties keeping providers consistently at the clinic, and we got capacity at other clinics, so we made the decision to close it.”

LaFrancois says the priority now shifts to taking care of the patients and making the transition as easy as possible.

LaFrancois says “We have made notification, we have notified the employees. We got plenty of positions for them, so no one is losing a job over this. It’s the transition of the patients and their care that is the most challenging, and the one we are giving the most attention to. And we have sent letters out, and working on that communication.”

A.R. Gould currently has primary care centers in Presque Isle, Fort Fairfield, and Caribou.

LaFrancois mentions “We know that people are going to have to drive a little farther. We got access at Fort Fairfield, We got access here at the hospital in women’s health, and we are working hard to get everybody in a practice within Northern Light Health that they want, and making sure they got all the information they need to transition care to somebody if that’s what they desire.”

LaFrancois says someone will be available to help Mars Hill Health Center patients, even after August 1st.

LaFrancois adds “Those that have prescriptions that will need to be renewed past the first of August. We got a process in place to do that, to get another provider within the system to approve those prescriptions, the auto refills. And we think we got a pretty good plan.”

For more information you can reach out to the Mars Hill Health Center.

Isaac Potter, News Source 8

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