Insurance Company Looks to Fill 73 Positions in Abilene
August 12, 2009
by Jaime Adame
Abilene Reporter News
Abilene’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas customer service call center will net 55 new jobs, even as 18 local employees lose their jobs.
The insurance company announced numerous layoffs systemwide Wednesday, including 200 in Tulsa. The streamlining of Tulsa operations will make Abilene the central center for processing federal employee benefit claims.
Some of the former Tulsa employees may fill 73 new Abilene positions, which will be added by the end of the year.
“It’s too early to tell how many of the new jobs will be filled with new hires” or Blue Cross Blue Shield employees relocating to Abilene, said Margaret Jarvis, a spokeswoman for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas.
The 18 Abilene employees will lose their jobs Oct. 2, Jarvis said. The Abilene cuts will affect managers, clerks and analysts, she said. New positions added will be for claim examiners and customer service representatives, Jarvis said.
The customer-owned insurer is the largest provider of health benefits in Texas and employs about 1,100 in Abilene. Ninety of those employees work from home, Jarvis said last month, and that number could grow.
“I do know that some of the new positions will be telecommuting opportunities,” she said.
A Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma news release initially stated that “most of the (Tulsa) positions will be relocated to Abilene.” However, a spokeswoman for the insurer, Nicole Amend, said only that “Tulsa employees ... would get preferential treatment over external candidates” when applying for Abilene positions.
The realignment is a part of overall cuts announced Wednesday by Chicago-based Health Care Services Corp., the parent company for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas and similar Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in three other states: Oklahoma, Illinois and New Mexico.
Citing actual and projected membership losses, the parent company announced plans to cut about 650 positions over the next four months, a 4 percent reduction in its work force to be completed by the first quarter of 2010, with most of the cuts taking place in Texas, Oklahoma and Illinois.
Those cuts include the Tulsa layoffs, which will take place over six months, and, in Texas, the closure of a Palestine document imaging and manual claims center where 123 employees are losing their jobs in November.
Statewide, 181 positions are being eliminated across eight locations.
If other Blue Cross Blue Shield employees apply for the new Abilene positions, they will be given “favorable treatment,” Jarvis said.
The news comes on the heels of major changes to the company’s Amarillo center announced in July.
The $16 million, 98,000 square-foot Amarillo facility opened in December 2007, with the company announcing that it hoped to grow more than 500 jobs in about four or five years. The Amarillo Economic Development Corp. pitched in $2 million to cover land purchase costs.
This summer, however, 21 of the Amarillo center’s 155 workers lost their jobs when Health Care Services Corp. decided to shift the call center’s focus away from helping Blue Cross Blue Shield customers. The center now supports two Health Care Service Corp. subsidiaries, TMG Health and Dental Network of America.
Economic Climate
In Abilene, the business is located at 4002 Loop 322, and pays $5 per year to the Development Corp. of Abilene to lease the building, according to Richard Burdine, chief executive officer of the DCOA. The economic development organization also has paid about $5.7 million in building improvements since 1997, when the company moved into the building. The arrangement is for the DCOA to pay roughly 60 percent of improvement costs, Burdine said.
“BCBS has been an outstanding corporate citizen of Abilene since opening the call center,” Burdine wrote in an e-mail message. “They provide a great working environment, competitive salaries and excellent benefits for their 1,100+ employees.” He also noted that the company’s annual Abilene payroll for salaries and benefits is $43 million.
Despite the economy putting the squeeze on employers nationally, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas added more than 135,000 members through the first seven months of this year, Jarvis said.
“We’re trying to remain competitive by serving our membership more cost effectively,” said Jarvis, describing the cuts as a response to “changing business needs.”
Nationally, the cuts are expected to save Health Care Services Corp. about $70 million.
In a news release, the parent company cited another reason for the cuts, noting that “all indications from the health care reform debate are that health insurers will be expected to further reduce administrative expenses to help reduce the overall cost of health care.”
