SCAN HMO Lays Off 13% of Work Force

SCAN Health Plan of Long Beach, part of a long-running experiment in home-based care for the elderly, faced the hard realities of rising health care costs Friday when it announced the layoff of 13% of its work force.

SCAN, which stands for Senior Care Action Network, has been under pressure from the state Department of Managed Health Care to improve its financial health. A state spokesman said SCAN failed to meet one of its financial parameters for HMOs because it did not have enough tangible net equity.

“We’ve been working with them on a plan to improve their finances, and we’re going to hold them accountable for doing that,” the spokesman said. He added: “At this point, we don’t see their finances affecting patient care.”

Susan Cameron, chief operating officer for SCAN, said that the layoffs affected about 80 employees and that none was directly involved in patient care. Cameron blamed low reimbursements for the care SCAN provides and said it was necessary to “realign to meet these challenges.”

SCAN is a Medicare HMO plan and a nonprofit social service provider with 52,000 members. It helps patients avoid nursing homes as long as possible by providing in-home care including meals, prescription and food deliveries, cleaning services and emergency care.

Since 1985, it has been one of only four programs in the nation with special social HMO status allowing home-based case for those who might have no other alternative but living in a nursing home.

Ronald D. White