Saltzer Health will close Friday, along with its 11 clinics. Where will its providers go?

Saltzer Health, the multipractice physician group and chain of urgent care clinics in the Treasure Valley, is slated to close Friday.

The closure one of the state’s oldest and largest primary care groups has left over 450 employees to find work elsewhere and has forced the roughly 100,000 patients Saltzer sees each year to find care elsewhere too. Saltzer has operated at 11 sites in the Valley, including the Boise area’s only 24-hour, seven-day-a-week urgent-care clinic.

Saltzer’s parent nonprofit announced in January that the practices would shutter by the end of March, absent a last-minute sale.

It appear such a sale has not materialized, though a spokesperson for Intermountain Health Care, the Salt Lake City-based health system that owns Saltzer, said it is still in talks with other organizations who may be interested in purchasing some services. Glen Beeby, the spokesperson, said he couldn’t comment on details.

He said Saltzer has been in constant communication with its patients about ways to continue their care with as little disruption as possible.

On Saltzer’s website, where its providers are listed, information had been added to some providers’ profiles that says where they will end up after Saltzer’s clinics cease operating. Among them:

• Dr. Richard Aguilar, Saltzer’s medical director of clinical research, will join the Saint Alphonsus Health System on April 15 to work in pediatrics in Nampa.
• Dr. Jennifer Anderson will join St. Luke’s Health System beginning April 29 to work in cardiology.
• Dr. Kimberly Ferguison, a pediatrician, will join Primary Health Medical Group in Meridian.

• Dr. Mark Rasmus, a Saltzer board member and sleep medicine specialist, is opening a new sleep medicine clinic called Everything Sleep Idaho on April 1 at the same Boise and Nampa locations where he already cares for patients.

• Joining Rasmus at that clinic are three other Saltzer providers: Brian Kittelson, a doctor of nursing practice; Taya Gill, a physician assistant; and Heather Grote, a physician assistant.

• Dr. Jesse Chlebeck, an orthopedic surgeon and associate medical director of orthopedics at Saltzer, will open a new orthopedic clinic in April at 875 S. Vanguard Way in Meridian called North Fork Orthopedic Surgery.
• Joining Chlebeck at that clinic is Nicole Funk, a physician assistant at Saltzer.

Chlebeck told the Statesman in January that he was doubtful Saltzer could achieve a sale by April.

“The uncertainty is very challenging,” Chlebeck said then. “It’s challenging for our staff to know whether they want to stick it out and wait and hope that somebody purchases the group, or whether they start looking for a new job now.”

One profile, for Dr. Daniel Bradley, an adult spine surgeon, says he ”is committed to staying in the Treasure Valley” to continue caring for his patients. Another physician, Dr. Mark Clinger, who practices family medicine, plans to leave the area and move to Utah to be closer to family.

Saltzer, for now, operates the Valley’s only 24-hour, seven-day-a-week urgent-care clinic, located in the Ten Mile Crossing business development north of Interstate 84 in southwest Meridian. Beeby said he could not say what will happen to that clinic.

Dr. Erik Richardson, associate medical director of family medicine at Saltzer, is opening a new family medicine clinic called Ridgeview Family Health in mid-April. He told the Statesman on Tuesday that the last few months have been a “whirlwind” and that he and several other Saltzer doctors plan to open their own independent practices.

He said Friday is the last day Saltzer will be open.

Dr. Joseph Saltzer founded the medical group in 1961 in Nampa. It has locations in Boise, Meridian, Nampa and Caldwell.

St. Luke’s Health System and Saint Alphonsus Health System, the two biggest health systems in the state, could have been candidates for acquiring Saltzer. But Dr. David Pate, retired physician and former CEO of St. Luke’s, told the Idaho Statesman in January that they were prohibited from doing so by a court ruling in a major lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission over a decade ago.

That lawsuit challenged St. Luke’s plans at the time to buy Saltzer. A federal judge in Boise struck down the deal, ruling that it violated federal antitrust laws.

This story was originally published March 27, 2024 at 4:00 AM.

Angela Palermo

Idaho Statesman

208-377-6285

Angela Palermo covers business and public health for the Idaho Statesman. She grew up in Hagerman and graduated from the University of Idaho, where she studied journalism and business. Angela previously covered education for the Lewiston Tribune and Moscow-Pullman Daily News.  Support my work with a digital subscription