Maine Family Planning will shut down its primary care practice because of federal funding cuts

Maine Family Planning will shutter its primary care practice by the end of the month after being blocked from accepting Medicaid funds.

The state’s largest reproductive health care provider was one of two Maine organizations that can no longer claim Medicaid reimbursements due to a provision in the budget reconciliation bill that targeted certain providers that offered abortions (although the federal funds cannot and were never used to fund abortion services).

That meant a loss of $2 million in annual revenue for Maine Family Planning, which operates health care centers in 18 locations across the state. Primary care services were available in three of those locations. 

Maine Family Planning filed a lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to block the law from applying to the organization, but Judge Lance Walker — who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term — denied that request. Maine Family Planning appealed to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston requesting a response by September 30.

“We have been very clear with the courts that without intervention and without the ability to bill Medicaid, we will have to end our primary care practices in Ellsworth, Presque Isle and Houlton by October 31,” said Olivia Pennington, the group’s director of advocacy and community engagement. 

“Those are all federally designated medically underserved areas. So we know already that folks have difficulty accessing health care, especially primary care, in those areas.”

Federal judge OKs Medicaid defunding of Maine’s largest reproductive health care provider

Walker wrote in his late August decision that the health care provider failed to demonstrate the irreparable harm it claimed to face, despite attorneys for Maine Family Planning warning about the impending shuttering of primary care and having to lay off providers in rural areas where health care is already scarce.

Maine Family Planning’s primary care practice was modeled to serve patients on MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, so without those federal funds, it is no longer sustainable, the organization said in a statement. Over the next 30 days, it will notify patients that they are being discharged and will work with them to help identify other primary care providers in the region that are accepting new patients. 

 “The cruel and dangerous law has put us in an impossible situation,” said George Hill, president and CEO of Maine Family Planning. “Discharging and turning away vulnerable patients strikes at the very heart of MFP’s reputation as a trusted community provider that has been able to serve patients of any means for more than 50 years.”

The provider is still seeing patients who need family planning care, regardless of insurance status, for as long as that is possible. 

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the other Maine provider blocked from accepting Medicaid funds, is still continuing to see patients in four health care centers across the state, regardless of their insurance or ability to pay. The organization recently started canvassing communities in southern Maine to let residents know about the broad health services they offer.