Skip to main content
Health care giant Optum is closing a family medicine clinic in Northeast Portland, only a few years after buying out the longstanding local primary care operation.
A letter sent to patients Feb. 5 and reviewed by WW cited “several unavoidable factors” for the decision to close Family Medical Group Northeast. Reached for comment, an Optum spokesperson did not answer questions about what these factors were.
Optum is owned by UnitedHealth Group, which also owns UnitedHealthcare, the massive insurance company. As The Lund Report noted back in 2022, Optum in recent years quietly entered the Oregon primary care market.
The company bought Family Medical Group Northeast in 2021, according to an Oregon regulatory document. The clinic sits at an intersection on Northeast 33rd Avenue.
An old copy of the Family Medical Group website, archived on the Wayback Machine, listed five medical providers around the time of the Optum purchase, and said the clinic has been around since the 1980s.
But times were changing.
Another company Optum bought up in 2021 was Portland-based GreenField Health. Though its own archived websites suggest it was larger than Family Medical Group, by 2023 GreenField Health was closing its own remaining clinic and moving in.
“After much thought and consideration, we recently made the decision to combine our clinicians and staff at our Family Medical Group location,” said a December 2023 letter to patients from Dr. Stacy Chance, then listed as the chief medical officer of Optum Oregon. “Our entire GreenField Health team will move to our Family Medical Group location.”
Now, according to the letter from Optum to patients, that Family Medical Group location is itself closing.
Family Medical Group appears to have shrunk quite a bit in recent months.
Viewed via internet archives, the Family Medical Group Website listed 10 providers in January 2025 and eight in March. By December, it listed four providers. On Wednesday it listed two, and a sign on its door said it would be closed to patients on Fridays in February and March.
As The Oregonian reported last year, patients often face months long wait times to find a primary care doctor in the Portland area.
Bob Mohrman, 74, says he has been a patient with the clinic since around 2008, and is displeased at the prospect of having to find a new primary care doctor.
“I guess I could find another doctor, and I guess they could look at my MyChart and figure out what to do,” he tells WW. “But that’s not what medical care is supposed to be about. It’s supposed to be about continuity of care.”
In a statement, an Optum spokesperson said continuity of care for patients is a top priority. The letter the company sent to patients says the clinic will close March 13, but would continue to provide some services provided for another few weeks after.
“We know this news may come as a surprise and we’re here to support you through this transition,” the letter says, listing some next steps.
Oregon Academy of Family Physicians executive director Betsy Boyd-Flynn happens to be a patient at the Family Medical Group clinic herself.
Much remains unclear. Still, she says, the news of its closure is “super sad, and frankly worrisome.”
