Humana keeps adding local jobs as programs expand

By MICHAEL SASSO | The Tampa Tribune
Published: June 17, 2011
Updated: June 19, 2011 - 3:33 PM

TAMPA --

Mass layoffs unfortunately are far more common these days than mass hiring sprees.

But insurance giant Humana is going against the grain. Every few months for two years, this Louisville, Ky.-based company has announced another round of hiring in the Tampa Bay area, putting on 140, 170, even 270 new employees at a time.

It quickly has become one of the Bay area's biggest employers and soon expects to have 2,200 employees here. Humana's Medicare insurance products and a new focus on curbing costs among the chronically ill are fueling its growth.

To be sure, many of the jobs at its East Tampa offices presumably are modestly-paid customer service jobs ? the company wouldn't reveal its average wage. That's a mixed bag for Hillsborough County, which is trying to create a higher-paying economy of financial services and biomedical firms.

Humana's big St. Petersburg operation does tend to have higher-skilled nurses and professionals.

Still, in a region dogged by 10.5-percent unemployment, many jobseekers appear to be jumping at Humana's openings. More than 2,000 people have applied for roughly 310 recently opened jobs between St. Petersburg and East Tampa.

Humana is hugely dependent on federal tax dollars. The company makes three-quarters of its money comes from federal sources, providing Medicare Advantage health plans to seniors, Medicaid plans for the poor and health coverage for the military, according to regulatory filings.

Medicare Advantage essentially is outsourced Medicare, where seniors give up their traditional government-run health coverage in favor of a private insurer.

Humana's Medicare division has been on a tear throughout Florida for several years. According to regulatory filings, about 379,000 Florida seniors were enrolled in Humana's Medicare Advantage plans at the end of last year, up 63 percent from 2004.

Meantime, the company has become one of the Bay area's most prolific hirers even during this anemic economy.

St. Petersburg has reaped some of the biggest job gains. In February 2009, Humana created a new division in the Carillon office complex called Humana Cares with an initial staff of 200 nurses, social workers and other professionals. At least four more rounds of hiring have brought Humana Cares to nearly 1,000 employees.

Humana Cares is still trying to fill some of the 177 jobs it announced in April, about 130 of whom work in Carillon.

Behind all that employment growth is a huge national trend: trying to cut healthcare costs at the outset.

Humana Cares' nurses, community health educators and dietitians regularly call people with diabetes, congestive heart failure and other chronic conditions. The hope is that if nurses regularly dial them up, they'll stick to their doctors' orders and stay out of the hospital.

Other health insurers also are getting more aggressive at this "care management."

They're using sophisticated models to pinpoint people with certain diseases and even those only at risk of developing them, said Tom Heatherington, a senior executive with the healthcare consulting division of Accenture.

Insurers can see a 3-to-1 return on their investment using such techniques, some evidence shows, Heatherington said.

But, care management is still experimental, he said. How do you prove that a nurse's call helped keep someone out of the emergency room?

"Overall, the jury is still out," Heatherington said. "It's a tricky thing because you're trying to show that things would've been worse."

Scott Latimer, Humana's market president for West Florida, said the nurses and social workers at Humana Cares are reducing hospital visits.

"The most expensive place to get medical care is in the hospital," Latimer said. "The least expensive is in the doctor's office."

In Tampa, Humana's growth has more to do with outsourced Medicare Advantage plans than preventive care.

Today, seniors in Florida alone account for about 17 percent of Humana's roughly $33 billion in nationwide premiums and fees, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.

The company has an army of 1,100 telephone workers at the NetPark office complex on Hillsborough Avenue. There, agents in one call center answer customer questions, and agents in two more call centers try to sell them Medicare Advantage plans, prescription drug plans, vision, dental and long-term care insurance plans.

The company in early June said it's adding another 140 telephone sales agents at NetPark. Jobseekers can get more information about all Humana openings at .

Humana benefited hugely when Congress added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare in 2006, allowing Humana to create a new prescription drug plan, Latimer said.

Looking ahead, national healthcare reform will require Humana and other Medicare insurers to be more efficient.

In the past, the Medicare system has paid private insurers with Medicare Advantage plans about $1,000 more per patient than it pays for traditional Medicare. The federal Affordable Care Act will try to close that gap, which means cuts are looming for firms such as Humana, Latimer said.

Insurers also will get bonuses based on the quality of care they provide. Humana is counting on its telephone sales and customer service agents to help improve that efficiency and improve customer service, Latimer said.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tbo/news/~3/EOPptJuXx20/

path castle season finale harmon killebrew modern warfare 3 release date hpq atlanta braves real housewives of new jersey