FLORENCE — About 90 employees at BlueCross BlueShield PGBA in Florence may be out of a job by Feb. 5.
Billy Quarles, the company’s media relations specialist, said 15 employees each at the Camden and Columbia locations also recently received notice about the company’s reduction in force.
PGBA officials tried to give as much advance notice as possible to those employees, who are claims processors, Quarles said. In the remaining months of their employment, the company will try to place as many of those employees as possible in other positions.
The staff reductions are the result of the loss of a contract with a Medicare Advantage customer in Michigan. That customer had a decline in business and lost one of its groups, which meant the customer had fewer claims to process.
“PGBA processes the claims for that company, so without that group, there are not as many claims to process ... so that has taken some work away from PGBA,” Quarles said.
BlueCross is a large, diversified company with about 11,000 employees, Quarles said.
“Often, when one area of BlueCross experiences a downturn, other areas are growing and searching for qualified employees,” he said.
Quarles said company officials are trying to place many of the employees whose positions will be eliminated in other jobs throughout the company.
“That’s the right thing to do and we do not only this, but everything we can, to support associates of PGBA and of BlueCross,“ Quarles said.
PGBA LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, and has offices in Florence, Surfside Beach, Camden and Columbia.
PGBA performs claims processing, customer service, information systems platforms and fiscal services.
Company officials said in July the Florence office employed about 900 people and the Surfside Beach office employed about 850 people.
That’s when PGBA officials lost a bid for a defense department contract, working as a sub-contractor for the TRICARE program.
Company officials protested that decision, but said at the time PGBA will continue to provide services for TRICARE through March 31, 2010, and will provide an additional 90-day period of transitional help.
Company officials also said in July, however, the loss of that contract created the potential for job losses because the majority of PGBA’s nearly 1,750 local employees were devoted to the TRICARE program.
Quarles said PGBA processes about 45 million TRICARE claims per year, with a 99.5 percent accuracy level, and 99.8 percent of claims are processed within 30 days.
PGBA, one of Florence County’s top non-manufacturing employers for many years, has handled the TRICARE account for the past 28 years.
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