Wisconsin Home Health Care Company Announces Closure With Hundreds Of Layoffs

Wisconsin-based home health care provider GeminiCares announced plans this week to end operations and layoff around 700 workers.

GeminiCares President Kathy Rublee said in a release that the job losses look “substantial,” but many workers will be hired by other agencies.

“In reality, approximately 50 supervisory and administrative staff throughout Wisconsin will face a more difficult job search,” wrote Rublee.

Rublee added that uncertainty over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed changes to long-term care played a role.

Community Care Connections of Wisconsin CEO Mark Hilliker said care providers are concerned that changes to oversight and licensing under the governor’s budget plan favor large insurers.

Hilliker said one major worry for providers is the likelihood that “the large insurers like UnitedHealth and Molina Health come in,” and shrink provider networks.

In an email, the governor’s spokeswoman said the budget proposal seeks to ensure quality care while protecting taxpayers through reforms.

Wisconsin Department of Health Services spokeswoman Stephanie Smiley said changes to the long-term care program improve health care by adding primary care services while ensuring funding for Family Care is there in the future.

“Long-term care expenditures are always going to go up. That’s the bottom line,” Smiley said. “As stewards of taxpayers’ dollars, it is our duty to ensure that we’re looking at every which way we can to come up with proposals and ideas for things that we can do to help streamline services.”

“No one’s talking about cutting benefits,” Smiley continued. “This is all about an administrative way to ensure that people are receiving the services that they need in a coordinated manner to improve health care outcomes and help lower the cost.”

Roughly 50,000 people receive benefits through Family Care, the Family Care Partnership or IRIS, according to Smiley. She said those programs cost more than $2 billion a year. Hilliker said the state’s eight managed care organizations save Wisconsin around $300 million a year since transitioning long-term care away from the counties.

Meanwhile, Hilliker said his organization is working with GeminiCares to transition their clients to a new provider.

“For some people who have gotten care from an individual for quite a long time become pretty comfortable with that,” he said. “Just assuring that we’re able to match that person with someone else that they’re comfortable with is one of the key things that we’ll be doing over the next few weeks.”

Hilliker said they’ll be transitioning 42 members, some of whom may continue to receive long-term or personal care from the same caregivers. Hilliker said several providers have indicated they would be willing to hire GeminiCares workers.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include additional comments from GeminiCares President Kathy Rublee and DHS spokeswoman Stephanie Smiley.