After two physical therapists at Mountain View Hospital in Madras decided to join forces and open a private clinic, the hospital staff decided to stop offering outpatient rehabilitation services after more than 20 years.

The change will start at the end of this month.

“We took a look at the marketplace and tried to determine, based on now having a second independent option, whether a third, hospital-based program could be sustained,” said John Weinsheim, chief of outpatient services at the hospital. “We made the determination it couldn’t be sustained, given the amount of outpatient care in the community here.”

A letter was sent to 270 patients who had received rehabilitation care at the hospital in the last six months. Two people will lose their jobs in the transition.

The remaining physical therapist will continue to work in inpatient care. But all inpatient care, such as home health and hospice, will continue through the hospital, according to Liz Martin, spokeswoman with Mountain View.

Weinsheim said the decision was difficult, but the hospital is confident the community will continue to receive quality care.

“One of those challenging components of making a decision like this … is it touches a lot of folks,” he said. “These are services important to the community.”

The change, Weinsheim said, will not financially impact the hospital.

“This wasn’t something we had planned,” he said. “When our therapists decided to follow the entrepreneurial track, we spent considerable time looking at the options, at the market and considered factors such as (the difficulty) of recruiting additional therapists here.

There will now be two private outpatient rehabilitation clinics in Madras. Apex Physical Therapy already exists and Madras Physical Therapy Group is expected to open in August.

“We are confident (patients) will have high-quality services in Madras,” Weinsheim said.