PANAMA CITY — With Florida now enrolling most Medicaid beneficiaries in managed-care plans, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) plans to close three field offices this summer, including the Panama City site, Secretary Liz Dudek told lawmakers.
The agency last year closed field offices in Tallahassee and Ocala and plans additional closures of offices in West Palm Beach, Panama City and Alachua. The local office will close in June.
Eight local employees will be affected. The agency will provide the employees with career counseling and resume assistance, according to AHCA. In the state, 45 employees will be let go to accommodate changes to the statewide Medicaid program.
The local field office serves 14 counties in the Panhandle.
After it closes, Medicaid recipients can still contact the state number,800-226-7690, and file complaints at https://apps.ahca.myflorida.com/smmc_cirts.
The agency is responsible for the state’s Medicaid program and licensing the state’s 45,000 health care facilities, among other duties.
Dudek also told the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee the agency is looking at trimming other jobs, such as some temporary employees — known in state government as “other personal services” employees.
The agency last year carried out a 2011 law that has led to about 3 million Medicaid beneficiaries enrolling in HMOs and other types of managed-care plans. That significantly changed the way many health providers are paid for Medicaid services. The managed-care plans contract with doctors and other providers, scaling back the role of the agency.
“The reality is we don’t have jobs for all of the employees that we had,” Dudek said, adding that the agency will help the offices’ employees with such things as job placement and training.
Subcommittee Chairman Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, acknowledged the need for reorganization.
“I hate having the conversation about getting rid of employees,” Garcia said. “But the reality is with the fiscal constraints that we’re facing or in the horizon, I believe, we need to find some efficiencies.”
News Herald writer Ben Kleine and The News Service of Florida contributed to this report