Aspirus St. Luke’s opens primary care clinic in Cloquet

Aspirus St. Luke’s marked its new primary care clinic in Cloquet with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and said the site will start seeing patients July 1, a move aimed at keeping routine care closer to home for Carlton County families who now often drive to Duluth.

The clinic is in Pine Tree Plaza at 707 Minnesota 33, Suite 19, in the former Med Express clinic site. It will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and will begin with family medicine, lab services and radiology, with more services planned later.

Kim Terhaar, vice president of operations for Aspirus St. Luke’s, said, “The clinic brings care closer to home for Cloquet area families.” Aspirus said the project cost nearly $300,000 and used local contractors including Johnson Wilson Constructors, Contract Tile, Hunt Electric and Swanson Youngdale.

The opening is being watched as a practical test of whether a local clinic can ease pressure on patients who have had to leave town for basic appointments. For Cloquet-area residents, the change could mean shorter drives, easier follow-up visits and less time lost to travel for bloodwork, imaging and routine primary care.

That question carries extra weight in Carlton County, which has been identified in shortage-data sources as having primary-care shortage designations and as medically underserved. The county’s health-care access plan says it will pay for the most cost-effective transportation to a primary care provider within 30 miles of home and a specialty provider within 60 miles, a sign of how much distance still shapes access to care in the region.

The clinic’s mix of services is designed to keep more patients in town for everyday needs while still linking them to more advanced care when needed. If the site can hold onto patients who otherwise would have gone to Duluth, especially older adults, families without reliable transportation and people managing chronic conditions, it could become a meaningful local option rather than just another office on the edge of town.