Metro Detroit’s four remaining MedPost urgent care centers to be sold

Metro Detroit’s remaining four MedPost urgent care centers will close due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, with three of them expected to be sold to another urgent care operator. 

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, owners of the MedPost centers, plans to sell its locations in Bloomfield, Livonia and Southfield to First Choice Urgent Care, Tenet officials said Monday. The fourth location in Rochester Hills could be converted to a physician’s office or other healthcare facility.

The urgent care closures come as Detroit Medical Center, also owned by Tenet, conducts another round of layoffs, according to media reports.

Tenet said it expected employees at the urgent care facilities to be offered positions upon completion of the sale, which the company expects to occur in December.

"We are committed to providing our full support and assistance to employees through the close, and facilitating opportunities for open roles at local Tenet facilities," officials said.

At the beginning of the year Tenet had nine MedPost locations, but closed five of them in April due to the pandemic downturn.

The layoffs at Detroit Medical Center were first reported by Crain’s Detroit Business. According to Crain's, DMC has laid off several hundred employees and more layoffs are expected by the end of the year. Tenet would not confirm the layoffs.

“Like many health systems locally and nationally, we continually evaluate and review our staffing needs, which have decreased due to reduced patient demand during the pandemic,” DMC officials said in a statement sent to the Detroit News on Monday. “Our goal is to ensure we are strongly positioned to provide the highest quality and safest care to our patients while making the best use of our resources.”

DMC declined to provide additional information.

Earlier on in the pandemic, despite cuts throughout health care systems in Michigan, the need for layoffs was not apparent at the DMC. In April, DMC spokesman Brian Taylor said: "I can tell you the demand to care for the ever-increasing number of patients is creating an increased need for staffing, especially nurses."

At the time, Taylor said DMC uses a variety of resources to help to supplement nursing staff, including contracting with staffing agencies and reaching out to colleges and universities to recruit nurses.