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(HOWARD, SD) – Horizon Health Care, Inc. (Horizon) and allPOINTS Health Services (allPOINTS) board members and leadership are pleased to announce the intended merger of their respective community health centers to form a network of 31 medical, dental, and school-based clinics throughout the entire state of South Dakota.
“After months of discussion leading up to this decision, we are pleased with this opportunity to join forces with allPOINTS and add five well-established medical and dental clinics to our network,” said John Mengenhausen, CEO of Horizon Health Care, Inc. “Both organizations have a rich history in striving to improve the quality of life for those we serve through delivery of affordable health care in many of our state’s most rural areas. Horizon will continue to provide allPOINTS Health Services’ patients with access to the same quality health care they currently receive.”
allPOINTS Health Services is a Community Health Center with five medical and dental clinic locations in the communities of Alcestor, Elk Point, and Yankton, SD. Horizon and allPOINTS have been fortunate to have a long-standing relationship throughout the years, especially over the past fifteen years. Since 2003, Horizon has provided direct support to allPOINTS in the area of information technology, and most recently, the organizations have shared a partnership in the Prairie Health IT Network that provides shared IT staffing and health information technology training to staff.
Once the merger is complete, the allPOINTS clinics will operate as a part of Horizon Health Care, Inc. The current allPOINTS employees and providers will continue to serve patients at each clinic site. AllPOINTS Board Chair, Jerry Miller, has served on the board for the past five years and believes the merger will strengthen the services current patients are accustomed to. “We have given this decision a lot of consideration and wanted to move in the direction that was best for the nearly 3,000 patients we serve each year,” said Miller. “As a board, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to our patients and staff for their support over the past years. We have had great success in recent partnerships with Horizon and I feel confident that they will continue to strive for excellence.”
As the organizations work to integrate their locations and services, Mengenhausen and Sally Rosin, Horizon Board Chair, hope to have the merger completed by June 2017. “Throughout this upcoming integration period, Horizon is dedicated to merging the two organizations with minimal disruptions to patient care. As a board, we strongly believe that leveraging the strengths in both organizations will allow Horizon to improve and align processes in the delivery of quality patient care. We have a very exciting road ahead of us,” said Rosin.
For 39 years, Horizon Health Care, Inc. has been providing personalized, affordable, high-quality medical, dental and mental health care through a rural, community-based network in South Dakota. Horizon is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that serves the medical, dental and mental health care needs of South Dakotans in rural, medically underserved areas through 83,000 patient visits annually in 26 community health centers in: Aberdeen, Bison, Bryant, De Smet, Eagle Butte, Faith, Fort Thompson, Howard, Huron, Isabel, La Plant, Lake Preston, Martin, McIntosh, Mission, Plankinton, Wessington Springs, White River and Woonsocket. For more information please visit www.horizonhealthcare.org.