Nearly 900 workers at one of the state's largest Medicaid HMO's have received layoff notices, as part of the sale of Health Plus to Amerigroup, a Virginia-based HMO with a small presence in New York.
Amerigroup says all 875 Health Plus workers got notices to fulfill a state legal requirement, but the company plans to keep "a substantial majority" of them as employees.
Layoffs would go into effect starting March 31.
Health Plus currently serves about 320,000 New Yorkers. Amerigroup said members will continue to receive the same benefits and have access to the same doctors and hospitals.
Health Plus was founded in 1984 by Lutheran Medical Center, in Brooklyn. Hospital officials said they need the $85 million they'll get from the sale of Health Plus.
Most of the five million New York State residents on Medicaid receive their coverage through Medicaid HMO's.
Fred Mogul has been covering healthcare and medicine for WNYC since 2002. His beat takes him to hospitals, community clinics, doctors offices, health agencies, public schools and research labs across the metropolitan area. His work has appeared on NPR and in the New York Times, Time magazine and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
Comments [1]
Your choice of headlining the potential layoff in connection with this Amerigroup purchase seems to me to be sensationalistic. You could have headlined the sale without using scare tactics.
The number of Health Plus employees who will be retained by Amerigroup after the sale closes is as yet unknown, as these decisions are scheduled to be made and disclosed by the end of February.
I am both a Health Plus employee and a long time WNYC contributor.
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