Optum is closing several urgent care and primary care clinics in multiple states, according to a report in Becker’s. More than 500 clinical and administrative employees will be laid off in California alone, hard on the heels of other recent staff impacts at locations in Colorado and Florida. Parent company UnitedHealth Group attributes the changes to the evolving needs of the business. The report notes that Optum and its subsidiaries had multiple waves of staff reductions in the past year, including some at WellMed and MedExpress Urgent Care. Just a year ago, all registered nursing positions at nearly 150 MedExpress Urgent Care locations were eliminated. MedExpress currently has 115 locations after hitting a peak of more than 250 in 2019, largely driven by Optum’s investment.
Even so: UnitedHealth Group’s Optum still remains the largest employer of physicians and has 310,000 employees overall. Earlier this summer, the organization withdrew from a potential acquisition of the Steward Health Care’s physician group, after hitting major headwinds from federal regulators.