A general view outside the corporate headquarters of United Healthcare on December 4, 2024 in Minnetonka, Minnesota.
Stephen Maturen | Getty images
UnitedHealthcare offers certain employees in their benefit operations unit the option to accept purchases if they renounce before March 3, after a tumultuous year for the insurance giant, as CNBC has learned.
Those who do not accept the offer will continue in their current role or in a comparable position, two people familiar with the matter told CNBC. If the company does not meet a resignation fee through purchases, it will fire employees, people said, citing an internal resources site.
The company refused to share how many employees received purchase offers under the so -called voluntary renunciation separation program. The benefit operations unit supervises multiple subdivisions that help manage customer service, claims, registration, customer insurance benefits and more, said a person.
United Unitedhealth GroupShe is the largest private health insurer in the United United United Group.
UnitedHealth Group is the largest conglomerate of medical care in the US Medicare Advantage and deals with the consequences of the expensive cyber attack against its subsidiary change Healthcare. He has also faced a renewed anger for the high costs of medical care in the US, after the murder of the CEO of his insurance unit, Brian Thompson, in December.
Elder employees for purchases include full -time US workers or part -time assigned to four internal segments under benefit operations, including corporate, consumer operations, central services and supplier services, according to an internal memorandum sent on Monday and seen by CNBC.
“This voluntary option is part of our continuous efforts to ensure that our team is better positioned to meet the evolutionary needs of the people and customers to whom we are honest to serve,” said a spokesman from UnitedHealth to CNBC in a statement . “We continue to grow our workforce with more than 3,200 positions currently available on the careers of UnitedHealth Group.”
The company expects the employee termination date to be just May 1, according to the Memo. The memorandum said that some employees who accept purchases may need to work beyond that date, but the company does not expect to demand that they work beyond November 13.
Its compensation packages will depend on the number of years that have passed in the company and its salary degree, and will begin on its completion date, said the memorandum. The benefits provided to employees included in any possible future dismissal may not be “as favorable” as those offered to workers under the purchase program, according to the Memo.
The workers who received the purchase offers are in a state of shock, said that the people familiar with the matter, especially after United Group reported their highest annual income in 2024. The company said in its January profit release that generated $ 400.3 billion in revenues in 2024, 8% year after year.
Unitedhealth executives said during the company's fourth quarter in January that the “digital adoption” helped the company reduce costs. The Andrew Witty CEO described it as a “modernization agenda” that includes, but is not limited to artificial intelligence.
He added that Unitedhealth is “just scratching the surface of the opportunity.”
The workers were informed about purchases on Monday during 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 purchases follow the Thompson shooting, which unleashed a torrent of anger and accumulated resentment towards the insurance and renewed industry called to the reform.
That occurred only months after the change in medical care, which processes medical statements, was beaten by a cyber attack in February 2024 that compromised the protected health information of around 190 million people. UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $ 3 billion to suppliers affected by cyber attack.
Unitedhealth Group also fired workers in their Optum health services division last year.
The company's shares closed 2% on Wednesday.
