Another Planned Parenthood clinic in Missouri closed its doors at the beginning of January, amid ongoing efforts to prevent federal and state dollars from flowing to the organization. 

Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Rolla will maintain its staff and continue to see patients via telehealth for many services, including contraception prescriptions, emergency contraception, STI prevention services and other consultations.  

The closure of the clinic was announced on Dec. 30, and the clinic closed its brick-and-mortar facility on Jan. 1. It comes after the organization closed two St. Louis-area clinics in 2024 and a clinic in Joplin at the beginning of 2025. As in Rolla, those clinics have continued to serve patients online. 

“Shifting Rolla to fully telehealth enables patients to continue receiving the sexual and reproductive health care they trust while ensuring our long-term sustainability amid repeated attacks against sexual and reproductive health care in Missouri and across the country,” said Margot Riphagen, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, in a press release. 

The organization’s shift to telehealth follows nationwide trends unfolding since COVID-19, but persistent funding difficulties are contributing to the decision to close physical clinics, Planned Parenthood said in its news release. About 50 Planned Parenthood clinics have closed nationwide over the past year. 

Funding shifts for Planned Parenthood and what it means for patients 

Missouri lawmakers barred funds from Medicaid, known in Missouri as MO HealthNet, from being paid out to Planned Parenthood clinics in 2024 because of its status as an abortion provider, among other reproductive health services. 

After Missouri lawmakers blocked Medicaid dollars from funding visits to Planned Parenthood, the organization started covering the entire cost of the services they provide to Medicaid patients without the reimbursement that typically comes from the federal government for that care. 

The Missouri block was challenged heavily in courts, but more recently solidified by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against a challenge to a similar block of funding in South Carolina. 

As part of President Donald Trump’s budget bill, H.R. 1 or the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which prevents Medicaid dollars from going to abortion providers for one year, the realities of the funding difficulties are harder to work around, Planned Parenthood Federation of America said. 

Nearly half of Planned Parenthood patients use Medicaid, the organization said, and the group said it spent more than $45 million nationwide in September to cover the loss of funding for those patients. 

Coupled with funding debates over Title X — the federal family planning program that includes some Planned Parenthood clinics — the organization is facing an uphill battle when it comes to funding. 

From January to November 2025, nearly 50 Planned Parenthood clinics have been forced to close their doors. Since July, when H.R. 1 was signed into law, 20 centers have closed, Planned Parenthood said. 

Ashley Kuykendall, the director of programs at Beacon Reproductive Health Network, Missouri’s Title X provider, said it’s been difficult to cover these costs for years, but the difficulties are beginning to show up for patients. 

“We’ve been hearing from our subrecipient network and others in the state that there have been a variety of strains on funding over the past few years,” Kuykendall said. 

“Part of what we’re seeing is that the current need for services, especially sexual and reproductive health services, outweighs the current capacity of the providers,” Kuykendall said. “Unfortunately, the needs of Missourians, especially rural Missourians, are at risk.” 

Who takes on patients losing in-person care? 

Title X providers are prepared to take on patients who need or prefer in-person care, Kuykendall said. But those providers face other barriers that a larger nationwide network of providers like Planned Parenthood does not. 

Certain contraceptive methods, like intrauterine devices, can be expensive to keep stocked, she said, which usually leads to more appointments for patients. 

“That patient has to come back to the clinic, which in rural areas can be challenging with transportation, lack of child care, lack of time and especially paid time off work,” Kuykendall said. 

She also pointed to the lack of providers who can do certain types of care, which may mean that patients must line their schedule up with certain blocks of time on certain days of the month. 

Zachary Moser is the administrator at the Dent County Health Center in Salem, which provides Title X services. It is expected to see more patients following the closure of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Rolla, which is nearly 30 miles away. 

Moser said that while his center is prepared to take on new patients, he hadn’t heard from Planned Parenthood that the organization would be closing its doors to in-person appointments or that his center could be seeing an influx of referrals from those patients. 

“We are ready to go as far as providing oral birth control, IUDs, pretty much all forms that are out there, we have available,” Moser said. 

Although Planned Parenthood’s patients will have access to many of their services through telehealth, it doesn’t cover all of the gaps that are created by losing access to a physical clinic, said Alicia VandeVusse, a senior research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that advocates for reproductive health reform. 

“On the one hand, there are patients who prefer telehealth care and it clearly can remove a lot of barriers in terms of transportation access and being able to access care more quickly,” VandeVusse said. “At the same time, every person should have access to their preferred modality of care, and there are definitely people who prefer to have in-person, clinic-based care.” 

Planned Parenthood’s Rolla clinic said it will refer patients to local providers or to other in-person clinics in Springfield and St. Louis if they need in-person care. 

“Planned Parenthood clinics serve far more patients per year than other publicly supported clinic types,” VandeVusse said. 

“In raw numbers, there aren’t as many Planned Parenthoods as there are other clinic types, but they’re really sort of punching above their weight in terms of the impact they have on serving patients,” VandeVusse said.