Dive Brief:
- Humana is planning to trim its workforce, but is offering few details about the decision, Louisville Business First reports.
- The newspaper learned of the job cuts from Humana employees, but noted other media outlets have reported the news as well.
- In an email to WDRB, Humana spokesman Tom Noland said the hospital chain the move was part of a continual process of creating new jobs that align with the company’s growth plans and phasing out old ones that no longer support that goal.
Dive Insight:
According to Noland, Humana’s Louisville workforce will continue to be about 12,500 people. The insurer employs more than 50,000 people nationwide. Employees whose jobs are eliminated will have up to 60 days to find another position within the company or receive severance pay and outplacement job assistance, the company said.
The realignment could reflect changes due to Humana’s pullback from the ACA marketplaces. The company scaled back its participation significantly in 2016 and last month disclosed plans to exit the exchanges altogether in 2018.
It also comes on the heels of Humana’s failed mega-merger with Aetna after a federal judge blocked the deal in an antitrust case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice last summer.
In an article published on LinkedIn, Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard likened the healthcare system to a poorly designed car. “To get a high-quality, long-lasting car … you need integration,” he said. “In the world of health care, we have a fragmented system that’s delivering uncoordinated care to hundreds of millions of people.”
Fixing the problem will require integrating independent specialists and other caregivers to deliver a connected patient experience and bringing affordability to healthcare, Broussard says. He lists three core principles that are needed to make that happen: defining outcomes; structuring for motivation; and integrating the system.
“We need an integrated system that is financially incentivized to reward for optimal health, not optimal utilization,” Broussard writes. “Only by integrating the clinical, health and lifestyle components, with a personalized, high quality and efficient experience as the end product, can we help transform health care.”