Northern Light Health will move its Castine primary care practice to Blue Hill next month.
The new location at the Sussman Health Center on the Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital campus will open on Feb. 27. Patient care in Castine will be discontinued the same day.
The Castine location has one medical provider and four staff members, according to Northern Light Health.
The Brewer-based health system said its Castine primary care practice faced similar challenges to other small health centers in Maine, including “staffing difficulties, inconsistent access, shrinking patient panels, and high operating costs.”
Castine staff will contact patients to help them transition their care to Blue Hill or to another provider of their choice. And all staff members at the Castine office will be offered positions at the new Blue Hill primary care location, Northern Light said in a statement.
“We carefully considered all of our options before making this decision but ultimately found that combining the practices is necessary to best support long term access to high quality, coordinated primary care for all of our patients,” said John Ronan, FACHE, president of Northern Light Blue Hill and Maine Coast Hospitals.