Woodland Centers tells Kandiyohi County board Medicaid drop forced staff reductions, urgent-care growth

Woodland Centers Chief Executive Officer Ashley Chose told the Kandiyohi County Board of Commissioners on April 1 that the nonprofit served 4,762 individuals in 2024 and is seeing continued growth among youth clients, even as its Medicaid payer share fell.

Chose said Medicaid (PMAP) paid about 61% of Woodland Centers’ services in 2024, down from a typical level of about 70%. She told commissioners that the change in payer mix reduced the agency’s revenue by “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and led the center in February 2024 to reduce staff and cut some contracted telehealth providers.

The drop in Medicaid-reimbursed clients, Chose said, increased uncompensated care and forced Woodland Centers to cut five contracted telehealth employees provided through a vendor called Inovital and to reduce certain indirect staff. She described the cuts as a financial decision tied to payer mix rather than program quality.

Chose outlined program-level data for 2024: about 36.25% of Woodland Centers’ clients were from Kandiyohi County; 32% of clients were youths; clients’ ages ranged from 3 to 87; and the center served people from more than 60 Minnesota counties. She said commercial insurance accounted for roughly 18% of payments and that staff numbers fell from about 250 to about 225 across the center’s seven-county region.

Commissioners asked whether clients lost access after the staffing changes. Chose said the center transferred more than 600 psychiatry clients and a “quite a few” therapy clients when contracts changed; she acknowledged it was possible some clients were missed during transfers but said the agency’s aim was to place affected clients with other providers.

Chose said Woodland Centers’ urgent-care model has grown rapidly since it began in 2020–2023; the center recorded 704 urgent-care visits last year at its Kandiyohi location, and it operates mobile crisis services that respond to calls in the community. The urgent-care clinic is open Monday–Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., she said.

The center also described internal changes intended to improve care and reduce staff burden: rollout of measurement-based care for session assessments; deployment of an AI-assisted documentation tool (Helios) that Chose said reduced average documentation time from about 15 minutes per session to 3 minutes; and team-based meetings to reduce silos between therapy and psychiatry.

Chose and commissioners repeatedly stressed the potential community impact if fewer residents qualify for Medicaid: fewer people able to afford care, higher use of emergency rooms or law enforcement for crises, and increased uncompensated care pressures on providers. Commissioners emphasized Woodland Centers plays a central role in the county’s behavioral-health safety net.

Chose said the center continues to discuss contracts and funding with the region’s seven county social service directors and is exploring ways to sustain services if state and federal funding or eligibility rules change.

Commissioners thanked Woodland Centers for the report and for continuing crisis and prevention efforts in the region.