The Grants Pass location opened in 2020. Josh Balloch, vice president of AllCare Health, which administers the PACE program, said that opening as the COVID pandemic began was one of the problems the program faced.
"With the COVID pandemic happening at the start of our program, along with increase in provider costs and the dropping of the number of providers all across the entire country, it just made it very, very difficult to have a small program based in Grants Pass pencil out financially," he said.
He said the program also struggled to recruit and retain service providers and suffered a lack of awareness about its existence.
"Increased provider costs paired with COVID just made it very difficult to be able to increase that awareness and really kind of explain what was going on and the benefit of the program," he said. "And just nationwide, there aren't a lot of people who know about the PACE program. It's a relatively small program."
As a result, Grants Pass's PACE Center has less than 70 patients, who will now be transferred to other AllCare Health facilities for care.
The program's primary care provider will still provide services through AllCare.
PACE, which is funded by Medicare, also provides transportation to appointments, mental health care and dietary counseling, among other things.
According to AllCare, the PACE program is "the only facility of its kind in Southern Oregon."
"PACE gives coordinated medical and social services to those who want to continue living in their own home or community environment (such as residential providers) despite having chronic health needs," according to the program's website. "For many, PACE is a welcome alternative to nursing home care."
AllCare announced on Friday that the program's last day will be Dec. 31.
