Blizzard warnings in Northwest Minnesota, winter weather advisories across the state

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

On a snowy December afternoon, Brian O’Brien walked out of his final appointment with his doctor at the Mayo Clinic Health System’s St. Peter clinic feeling disappointed and frustrated. The next day, Dec. 10, the clinic closed, as is becoming quite common in rural towns and small cities across Minnesota.

“I was pretty much devastated, because I've been coming here for a long time,” O’Brien, 72, said. “It always seems to be quite busy, and it's very, very convenient for anybody who lives in St. Peter or even in other nearby towns.”

Sally Gaugert emerged from Mayo’s St. Peter facility after taking her 91-year-old mother in to get her blood drawn, and she was also disheartened. 

This is the second time in two years that Gaugert has had to transition her family’s care farther away from her home in Le Sueur. For years, Gaugert, 71, saw her doctors in town at Mayo’s Le Sueur clinic. When that shut down, she switched to St. Peter, about 15 minutes away. Now, she will have to drive even farther to the Eastridge clinic in Mankato.

Even on its last day, there’s a steady stream of patients coming in for final appointments. Gaugert, a former special ed teacher, said she’s confused. Mayo Clinic, considered to be the best hospital system in the country, made significant investments into their community not all that long ago, and now they’re taking it away. 

“It’s just sad,” Gaugert said. “It’s senseless. Here we have a huge building and what’s going to become of it? It’s a waste.”

And it’s not just St. Peter, a town of about 12,000 people, that is losing a Mayo Clinic operation. The giant medical provider 

 this month — in Montgomery, Wells, Belle Plaine, Caledonia, and the Northridge clinic in Mankato. Elective outpatient surgeries were also relocated out of the Albert Lea facility to Mayo’s Austin and Waseca campuses.

Mayo Clinic Health Systems, a global medical behemoth that raked in close to $20 billion in revenue last year and reported a $1.3 billion operating profit, has cited the difficulty and expense of staffing and maintaining the medical facilities as reasons for the closures.

Allan Baumgarten, an independent health care market trends analyst in St. Louis Park, said the closures are likely the result of a changing strategy at Mayo. For years, the globally renowned health system was buying up clinics and facilities across the Upper Midwest. 

“Over the years, Mayo acquired most of the hospitals in southeast Minnesota, plus several in western Wisconsin and Northern Iowa,” Baumgarten said, adding that Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and Essentia Health’s St. Mary’s Medical Center in Duluth took a similar approach — obtaining primary care clinics and smaller hospitals in the region that could bring in a constant stream of patient referrals and revenue to the main medical campus.   

But Baumgarten said Mayo now seems to be moving away from that model. And he expects more closures in coming years.

“I think [Mayo Clinic] may have some regrets about having built out such a large network of facilities that have to be maintained and upgraded from time to time,” Baumgarten said. “It's expensive to operate clinics and small hospitals in rural areas, and it's often difficult to staff them, especially with the kind of professional medical staff that you need to offer a full range of services. Even Mayo Clinic, which is, of course, the world-known name brand in medicine, finds it difficult.”

Rochester Post Bulletin analysis this fall

 found that Mayo Clinic Health System has closed 25 clinics in the past eight years.

Mayo Clinic declined interview requests from MPR News, but in a statement, a spokesperson said that the clinic closures are “part of a larger effort to maintain patient and staffing volumes, sustain quality care and invest in modernizing facilities.” Mayo is also considering how they can reach rural patients more efficiently through technologies, like virtual appointments.

, after the closures were announced, Dr. Karthik Ghosh, vice president of Mayo Clinic Health System in Minnesota, said that a couple of the clinics were down to only one or two clinicians staffing them, so they had inconsistent hours. Some clinics had maintenance issues and repair needs, such as the Wells clinic, which Ghosh said had a mold problem. 

Baumgarten said that Mayo is trying to dial back its geographic footprint and instead bolster its main medical campuses in Rochester, Mankato and La Crosse, Wis., as hubs, similar to how it has with the newer major medical campuses in Arizona, Florida, and London. He said the hospital system is focused on creating a medical destination that patients will travel to from locations far and wide. 

“They're saying, come to us,” Baumgarten explained. “Where [other] systems have, you know, put emphasis on saying you get our high quality medicine close to home, Mayo Clinic is saying, no, it's not about that kind of convenience. It's about the convenience of having on a single campus, all the specialists, all the laboratories and testing equipment and everything else that's needed to provide high quality care for you at a single location.”

In a statement to MPR news, a Mayo Clinic spokesperson wrote: “Patients and staff were informed of their options, and appointments have been transferred to other MCHS locations.”

Most of the patients MPR News interviewed in St. Peter said they were following their doctors and would move their care to Mayo’s Eastridge clinic about 15 minutes away in Mankato. But some of the other closures will force patients to drive much longer distances; some an hour or more. And there are concerns about arranging transportation for older patients and those with disabilities who may not be able to drive themselves.

Mayo Clinic is making a business decision to close these clinics in Minnesota. But it’s also a tax-exempt nonprofit and unlike many rural Minnesota health systems it is not struggling financially. It posted 

 in 2024. And it’s in the midst of a $5.6 billion economic development project, Destination Medical Center, meant to boost Rochester and Mayo Clinic. 

There was an outcry on social media after the announcement, with residents of the affected communities voicing frustration that the global medical giant was seemingly disinvesting in rural Minnesota. Given its world-wide reputation and deep financial resources, many in the health care profession are asking, what is the obligation of a large health care system to its rural patients and communities?

Health

Minnesota News

Greater Minnesota

NewsPartners

Homepage

Molly Castle Work

Author

The Minnesota medical giant has been consolidating clinics across southern Minnesota as it struggles with staffing shortages in rural areas. But the closures are frustrating to those who relied on the clinics for care.

Mayo Clinic Health Systems just closed a half dozen clinics in rural towns and small cities in SE Minnesota, and it is consolidating some others, as the giant medical care provider struggles with staffing shortages in rural areas. 

Medical giant Mayo closes six rural health clinics in Minnesota there could be more to come

Exterior of a light brick building with the sign "Mayo Clinic Health System"

Molly Castle Work | MPR News

A man in a hat and winter coat poses next to a brick wall.

A woman in a blue coat poses for a photo next to a car.

Mayo Clinic just closed 6 rural Minnesota health clinics. More closings may follow

Go Deeper.

Like this?