MedPartners to Cut Some Jobs, Add Others

ANAHEIM — A Southern California reorganization and downsizing by MedPartners Inc. will eliminate scores of jobs in several Orange County communities but increase the company’s total employment in the county, the company’s president said Wednesday.

The Alabama-based operator of medical offices and physician groups is consolidating several of its Orange County facilities and will be laying off some workers, including about 40 in Westminster. But it has opened a new regional data processing center in Anaheim that will employ about 400 people, MedPartners President Mark L. Wagar said.

“There should be a net employment gain for Orange County when this is all done,” Wagar said.

The new data center will be in a five-story building near Anaheim Stadium. Workers will process records, medical claims and other paperwork for all of MedPartners’ Southern California operations, Wagar said.

While MedPartners has not yet identified all the offices that will be affected by its reorganization, the company has told employees at its Mullikin Medical Center in Westminster that the doctors’ offices there will be closed over the next six months.

The offices will be moved into a MedPartners medical center a few miles away on Magnolia Street in Westminster, Wagar said. About 40 of the 80 Mullikin employees will be transferred to the new location.

Layoffs will be minimal, Wagar said, because “we expect that from 50% to 75% of the people whose jobs are being eliminated will find other jobs with MedPartners or one of the medical groups that contract with us.”

Wagar, who announced last month that MedPartners would eliminate a total of 720 jobs in five Southern California counties by the middle of next year, said Wednesday that several other Orange County medical and administrative offices would be affected.

He would not identify them, however, saying that the employees and local officials have not yet been told of the company’s decision.

As in Westminster, each facility to be closed will be consolidated into another MedPartners facility that is close by, and most employees will be transferred or offered other positions within the company, Wagar said.

MedPartners operates about 140 facilities in Southern California, including more than two dozen clinics in 11 Orange County cities. The clinics operate under several names: Friendly Hills Medical Group, Talbert Medical Group, Gateway Medical Group and Mullikin Medical Centers.

The company also owns the Friendly Hills Medical Center in La Habra and the U.S. Family Care Center in Montclair. Wagar said the two hospitals would not be affected by the reorganization.