CMHC closing clinic and urgent care facility to save money

Central Maine Healthcare Jeff Brickman, president and chief executive officer of Central Maine Healthcare, said the closing of an urgent care facility in Auburn and a clinic in Mechanic Falls is part of an overall cost-reduction effort to put the health system on a more sustainable financial footing.

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Central Maine Healthcare, an integrated health system that includes Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Bridgton Hospital and Rumford Hospital, is closing facilities in Auburn and Mechanic Falls in a cost-cutting step that will eliminate 31 jobs.

The Lewiston Sun Journal reported that CMHC will close an urgent care facility in Auburn in about a month and a clinic in Mechanic Falls in September as part of its overall effort to reduce costs. Both facilities, the newspaper reported, were losing money.

CMHC CEO Jeff Brickman told the newspaper the job reductions — which include nine physicians — would reduce the health system’s expenses by 8% to 10%.

Brickman became president and CEO of CMHC last September, replacing Peter E. Chalke, who had announced his retirement earlier in the year.

Three months later, Brickman hired Illinois-based consulting firm Kaufman Hall to develop a plan for the hospital system's future in the face of a significant budgetary shortfall in 2016, telling the Sun Journal at that time that he was working diligently “to make sure that we can sustain this organization for the long term.”

CMHC is one of the area's largest employers, with about 4,200 employees at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, hospitals in Rumford and Bridgton, the Dempsey Center, the Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute and medical practices throughout central, western and mid-coast Maine.