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Northern Light Health lost $15 million last year, a year after a $156 million loss left the health care system reeling.
The health care system had a nearly $141 million improvement by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2025, its latest audit shows. It’s the first time in four years that Northern Light has lost less money than it did the previous year.
The latest financial report could indicate that the health care system is starting to turn things around after years of struggle and puts Northern Light’s losses more comparable to other hospital systems in the state. However, the improvement comes as federal funding cuts are expected to add more strain to rural medicine in the coming years.
Northern Light lost just under $15 million at the end of the 2025 fiscal year, while it was $156 million in the hole for fiscal year 2024, an audit for Oct. 1, 2024, to Sept. 30, 2025, released on Dec. 18 showed.
“We were certainly very pleased with the year over year improvement,” Chief Financial Officer James Rohrbaugh said. “There’s been a lot of work done.”
Northern Light last saw its financial outlook improve in fiscal year 2021, when it made $57 million in operating revenue after losing nearly $83 million the year prior, a spokesperson for the health care system said. It lost $131.7 million in 2022 and $36.1 million in 2023.
A big part of the financial improvement was a $50 million payment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for outstanding claims related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rohrbaugh said.
The FEMA payment from 2024 was only $1.2 million, University of Maine finance professor Pankaj Agrrawal said. The significantly larger 2025 payment helped with the debt, but it’s not a yearly payment at that size.
Spending on travel providers shrank by about $26 million, Rohrbaugh said. In August 2024, the system was spending more than $180 million on travel staff annually.
The system has also made sure it’s getting paid for its services, he said. It got a payment from MaineCare for services provided in 2023, which was an early sign of performance improvement, according to Moody’s Ratings.
Inland Hospital in Waterville closed in June, a decision that helped reduce debt, Rohrbaugh said.
“Much of this improvement reflects a one‑time or early‑stage action, rather than a fully established new normal,” Aggrawal said. “The sharp drop in debt and liabilities is therefore best understood as part of a broader, still‑in‑progress turnaround: it is strong evidence that things are moving in the right direction.”
However, he added the system needs at least two or three more years of operations that break-even or even positive without one-time payments. Continued cost and revenue improvements and less reliance on credit are needed to show a lasting fix, Aggrawal said.
It’s been common for Maine hospitals to lose money in recent years. MaineHealth, the state’s largest health care system, made $40 million in fiscal year 2024 but lost $18 million in 2023, according to its most recent audit. MaineGeneral Health in Augusta lost $14 million in 2024 and $19 million in 2023, its most recent audit said.
Northern Light credit rating from S&P Global dropped in early 2025, the global rating firm said. Moody’s Ratings also downgraded Northern Light’s credit rating in the past year.
An expert warned at the time that the downgrades mean the system would likely struggle to find lending.
The current fiscal year will still be challenging for rural medicine, especially as the federal budget reconciliation bill goes into effect, Rohrbaugh said. The bill will cut about $5 billion from MaineCare.
As Northern Light looks forward, it needs to determine what level of staffing it needs and use fewer contract providers, which come at a steep cost, Rohrbaugh said. The whole state has staffing problems and the system is working to keep retention rates high, he added.
“We feel very encouraged by the success in [fiscal year] ’25 and we’ll continue to build on it,” Rohrbaugh said. “It’s a journey and every health care organization across the country is facing the same challenges and pains.”