Centene to lay off 2,000 workers; St. Louis job numbers unknown [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Sep. 27—ST. LOUIS — The health insurance giant Centene is planning to lay off roughly 2,000 workers, roughly 3% of its workforce, as its business evolves, the Clayton-based company said Tuesday.

Contact the reporter

If you or someone you know has been affected by the layoffs, contact reporter Annika Merrilees at amerrilees@post-dispatch.com.

The company did not say how many of those will be St. Louis-area employees. Centene had 74,300 full-time employees as of December, according to regulatory filings.

Confidential human resources documents obtained by Health Payer Specialist, an online health industry trade publication, said employees will be notified of the termination between Oct. 2 and Oct. 5.

Their last day of work, the documents said, would be Dec. 8.

The plans were found in a 13-page set of documents titled "Supporting December Transition."

Centene, a managed care company, said in a statement Tuesday laid-off employees will receive severance packages and outplacement services.

According to Health Payer Specialist, documents direct HR workers to tell employees "Thank you for meeting with me today. Over the last 18 months Centene has been actively working on its Value Creation Plan ... We are facing headwinds related to the [Medicaid] redetermination process and the impact of Medicare Advantage Star Ratings."

The announcement comes amid a yearslong push to improve profit margins at the company, and as Centene faces challenges in its Medicaid and Medicare Advantage businesses.

For most of its history, Centene expanded rapidly through acquisitions, growing from a single Medicaid plan into a giant in the managed care industry. In more recent years, investors have pressed the company to cut costs.

In 2021 the company announced a plan to improve margins and shed assets. Since then, the company has sold subsidiaries and relinquished much of its real estate footprint in St. Louis and across the country.

It has embraced remote work, last year reporting that 90% of its workforce was either fully or partly remote.

The company's Medicaid membership has been expected to decline as states resume eligibility checks after a three-year, pandemic-related hiatus. States were allowed to begin in April, though most waited until June and July to start the process.

In July, CEO Sarah London said in July that Centene's Medicaid membership had seen ebbs flows in recent months.

Centene has also been working to rebuild its Medicare Advantage quality scores, which tumbled in 2022. At the time, Centene attributed the drop to COVID-related disaster relief provisions, and last year said it was taking "aggressive action" to improve the ratings, like hiring a chief quality officer and adding quality improvement as a compensation metric for all employees.

Still, the company has told investors several times that raising the quality scores is a slow process.

Contact the reporter

If you or someone you know has been affected by the layoffs, contact reporter Annika Merrilees at amerrilees@post-dispatch.com.

------

___

(c)2023 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.