Renville County Hospital plans to merge with HealthPartners

Renville County Hospital and Clinics is planning to merge with HealthPartners, the Bloomington-based health insurer that currently operates seven hospitals and dozens of clinics across Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

RC Hospital & Clinics, as the health system is called, has headquarters in the west-central Minnesota city of Olivia, about 100 miles west of the Twin Cities.

The city also is located about 40 miles north of Springfield, where Mayo Clinic announced this month that it would close a hospital next year. Allina Health System then said it would open a clinic in Springfield.

"Our organizations share similar goals for high-quality, affordable care that's local," said Andrea Walsh, president and chief executive of HealthPartners, in a statement.

HealthPartners is one of the state's largest nonprofit organizations, including Regions Hospital in St. Paul and the Park Nicollet network of clinics based in St. Louis Park. In 2018, HealthPartners hit the $7 billion mark and took full ownership of its seventh hospital, in Hutchinson, Minn. The health system also has an ownership interest in St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Shakopee.

RC Hospital & Clinics (RCHC) has a 16-bed critical access hospital with three outpatient clinics. In fiscal 2017, the health system posted an operating margin of $3.3 million, or 11.5%, which was one of the highest operating profit margins in the state that year, according to data from the Minnesota Hospital Association.

"Affiliating with HealthPartners provides RCHC access to the scale, service and expertise necessary to provide our region with expanded health care services of the highest quality, while also ensuring the long-term viability of local health care services," RCHC's CEO, Nathan Blad, said in a statement.

Over the past two months, HealthPartners has announced a series of layoffs that are eliminating more than 400 jobs. The health system overall employs about 26,000 people.

Christopher Snowbeck • 612-673-4744 Twitter: @chrissnowbeck