HealthPartners will close a home care unit, affecting about 70 employees, the health insurer and hospital operator told the Star Tribune.
Bloomington, Minn.-based HealthPartners attributed the closure of Integrated Home Care in St. Paul, Minn., to financial challenges, as well as an expected cut to federal payments in 2020.
This is the third time in recent months that HealthPartners has confirmed layoffs to the newspaper. In November, HealthPartners confirmed about 75 job cuts, citing decreased Medicare revenue. The health insurer and hospital operator also announced Nov. 7 it will close retail pharmacies and shut down its mail-order pharmacy operations next year. The move will result in about 300 people losing their jobs, including 100 pharmacists.
Rebecca Johnson, a HealthPartners spokesperson told the newspaper via email that no more layoffs are expected this year.
"As we put together our 2020 budget, we had to make adjustments to ensure that our organization would able to care for and serve people in a financially sustainable way," she wrote. "We reduced other expenses, found efficiencies and left open positions unfulfilled to avoid layoffs."
HealthPartners posted $7 billion in revenue for the 2018 fiscal year. It has more than 26,000 employees and a care system that includes a multispecialty group practice of more than 1,800 physicians, according to the HealthPartners website.
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