Business
HMO pays employees big bonuses
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted April 18, 2005
The former majority owner of a South Florida-based Medicare HMO health plan, which was bought out by Humana Inc. earlier this year for $408 million, unexpectedly gave out checks totaling nearly $26 million to about 500 employees at the health plan.
Entrepreneur Miguel Fernandez, the CEO of CarePlus Health Plan of Florida, decided along with fellow investors in the managed care plan to distribute the money to workers as a gift, not as severance, according to Karen Buschbaum, a spokeswoman for Fernandez. The sale to Humana was completed in February and employees got their money the same day, she said. No workers had lost their jobs as a result of the sale as of late March, she said.
The amount of the checks varied according to the length of time workers had been with the health plan, but long-time employees in some cases got as much as $100,000, she said.
CarePlus has 50,000 members.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2005/04/18/bibf0418.htm.
