A general point of view outside the headquarters of United Healthcare on December 4, 2024 in Minnetonka, Minnesota.
Stephen Maturen | Getty images
Unitedhealthcare offers certain employees in its social benefits unit the possibility of accepting the buyouts if they leave by March 3, after a tumultuous year for the insurance giant, CNBC learned.
Those who do not accept the offer will continue in their current role or in a comparable position, two people familiar with the question at CNBC said. If the company does not respond to a quota of resignation through buyouts, it will dismiss employees, said people, citing an internal resource site.
The company refused to share the number of buyout offers received by employees as part of the so-called voluntary resignation separation program. The unit of benefits of social benefits oversees several subdivisions which help manage customer service, complaints, registrations, customer insurance services and even more, said a person.
Unitedhealthcare, the insurance branch of United Groupis the largest private health insurer of the US United Unitedhealth Group had more than 440,000 employees in December 2023, but it does not reveal the number of people working in its advantages segment or a global insurance company.
Unitedhealth Group is the largest conglomerate for health care in the United States on the basis of income and its market capitalization by around $ 460 billion, but it has tried to reduce costs as medical expenses increase for Beneficiaries of Medicare Advantage and treat the benefits of costly cyber attacks against its subsidiaries change health care. He was also faced with renewed anger in the face of high health care costs in the United States, following the murder of his CEO of the insurance unit, Brian Thompson, in December.
Employees eligible for buyouts include full -time or part -time workers assigned to four internal segments under benefits, including consumption operations, basic services and supplier services, according to a note internal sent Monday and consulted by CNBC.
“This voluntary option is one of our current efforts to ensure that our team is best placed to meet the evolutionary needs of people and customers that we are honored to serve,” a spokesperson for Unitedhealth said in a press release . “We continue to develop our workforce with more than 3,200 jobs currently available on the United Hiters site of Unitedhealth Group.”
The Company expects the date of dismissal of employees to be earlier on May 1, according to the memo. The memo said that some employees who accept buyouts should need to work beyond that date, but the company does not expect to force them to work after November 13.
Their starting packages will depend on the number of years they have spent in the company and their salary rating and will start their date of dismissal, said the memo. The advantages granted to employees included in any potential future layoff may not be “as favorable” as those offered to workplace workers, according to the memo.
Workers who have received the buyout offers are in shock, said that people familiar with the issue, especially after Unitedhealth Group published its highest annual income in 2024. Coming from 8% of a year on the other.
The leaders of Unitedhealth declared during the call of the fourth quarter of the company in January that “digital adoption” helped the company reduce costs. The CEO Andrew Witty described it as a “modernization program” which includes but is not limited to artificial intelligence.
He added that UNITEDHEALTH is “just scratching the surface of the opportunity”.
The workers were informed of the acquisitions on Monday at a meeting that lasted about 10 minutes and they were told that they will have the opportunity to ask questions in the information sessions in the coming days, people said.
The acquisitions follow the Thompson shooting, which sparked a torrent of repressed anger and resentment towards the insurance sector and renewed calls for reform.
It came only months after the change of health, which treats medical complaints, was struck by a cyber attack in February 2024 which compromised the protected health information of around 190 million people. Unitedhealth Group paid more than $ 3 billion to the providers affected by the cyber attack.
Unitedhealth Group also dismissed workers from his Optum Health Services division last year.
The company’s shares closed by 2% on Wednesday.