Essentia Health
Legal name: First Care Medical Services
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 410706143
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2010–2024
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2024, Form 990-T 2024
- Location
- Duluth, Minnesota, US
- Phone
- 218-786-8376
- Rating
- 72
- Verdict
- SUPPORTED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Hospital, General
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $35,869,484
- Expenses
- $32,509,230
- Assets
- $46,586,700
- Liabilities
- $10,648,255
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
15 people listed
Highest reported compensation
- CHERYL WHITE MD (PHYSICIAN & SECTION CHAIR): $586,207 total reported compensation
- TANNER GOODRICH (INTERIM ADMINISTRATOR THRU 7/24): $578,900 total reported compensation
- NICOLE KIESOW (PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT): $343,191 total reported compensation
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2024. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To make a healthy difference in people's lives.
What it reported doing in 2024
First care medical services, dba essentia health fosston, is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable, educational, and scientific purposes. More specifically, essentia health fosston is created and organized to own, maintain, operate and conduct, directly or indirectly, and to assist and coordinate activities of facilities for health care, education, care for the aged and social services, including charitable care to persons unable to pay.essentia health fosston has a critical access hospital with 43 licensed beds and primary care clinics serving polk, clearwater, mahnomen, and red lake counties. The hospital is designated as acute stroke ready and offers emergency care 24 hours a day. Essentia health fosston offers inpatient and outpatient services including imaging/radiology, lab, surgery, and rehabilitation.essentia health fosston has a skilled nursing facility with 50 licensed beds connected to the hospital that serves people who need skilled care beyond the hospital and want to remain in the community. In addition, prairie pines community housing provides assisted living apartments with a menu of services that can be assessed based on need.essentia health fosston employs approximately 145 full time equivalents. The hospital provided approximately 1,300 hospital patient days and 27,000 outpatient visits during the fiscal year ended june 30, 2025. The clinics had nearly 25,000 encounters and the skilled nursing facility provided 10,000 resident days during the same time period.during the fiscal year ended june 30, 2025, essentia health fosston provided the following community benefits: $272,000 in charity care, $229,000 costs in excess of medicaid payments, $94,000 in community services, and $23,000 in health profession education.essentia health is the parent organization of an integrated health system that includes this organization and all entities that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by essentia health (collectively, the "system or "essentia health").
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Earned-program. 98% of the money available for current operations came from fees and other program revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. A relatively small share of voting board members are independent and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 69
- Transparency & Controls: 80
- Accountability: 61
- Sustainability: 56
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 74.4%; rating input score 74
- Program expense ratio: 82.5%; rating input score 83
- Fundraising efficiency: Limited
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 92.9%; rating input score 93; 10th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: 3 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 50
- Compensation committee: Pass
- Independent consultant: Missing
- Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
- Written employment contract: Missing
- Compensation survey or study: Pass
- Board or committee approval: Pass
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: 71%; rating input score 71; 14th percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
- Related-party transparency: Yes; rating input score 100
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 33.3%; rating input score 33; 7th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 9 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 100
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
- Whistleblower policy: Pass
- Document-retention policy: Pass
- CEO compensation review process: Pass
- Other executive compensation review process: Pass
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Pass
- Independent financial-statement audit: Pass
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 9.4%; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 1.43; rating input score 49; 49th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.23; rating input score 55; 55th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 7.4%; rating input score 33; 33rd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 2.5% per year; rating input score 100; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 3.4% per year; rating input score 100; 29th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 6.5% per year; rating input score 100; 45th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 5 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 3 operating locations identified
- Where the money goes: 74.4% of revenue deployed · 82.5% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 1 of 3 board members independent · 9 of 9 filing controls reported
- Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $26.8M in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $586K · 15 people listed · 3 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
- Consistency: 36 of 37 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
- Schedules: 10 filed schedules · includes major donors, grants, executive pay, and related organizations
- Filing history: 15 filing years from 2010 to 2024
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 10 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: 29 filed related-organization links
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Accountability: Independent voting board scored 33/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 49/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 33/100.
- Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Review — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 55/100.