Dozens laid off at Blue Cross of Idaho amid organizational changes

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Blue Cross of Idaho is laying off dozens of employees, a spokesperson for the company said Wednesday.

The nonprofit has recently undergone some organizational changes to promote efficiency and lower costs for its customers, Bret Rumbeck told the Idaho Statesman by email. Blue Cross of Idaho is the state’s oldest and largest health insurer.

Rumbeck said that under 90 people were laid off as part the changes.

“These decisions were not easy to make but position Blue Cross of Idaho to remain a strong, Idaho-based company and that has been committed to the state for the last 80 years,” Rumbeck said. “These changes are designed to help us focus on serving our nearly 600,000 members and continue transforming the healthcare experience of the communities we serve.”

He did not respond to questions about what positions were affected or when the cuts take effect.

The latest round of layoffs at the nonprofit come just several months after a bout of cuts last year.

Blue Cross of Idaho laid off 135 employees between June and October after the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare terminated a decade-long contract with it for the state’s Medicare and Medicaid dual-eligible program, choosing to award it to two out-of-state, for-profit insurers instead: United Healthcare and Molina Health Care.

Health and Welfare said it expected to save up to $40 million by switching. Blue Cross of Idaho first partnered with Health and Welfare to usher in the duals program in 2014. It submitted a bid to continue with the program in 2026 but ultimately wasn’t chosen.

The nonprofit closed its operating unit that worked exclusively on the program and said the job cuts were a direct result of losing the contract. Most of the affected employees were care coordinators and claims examiners.

Blue Cross of Idaho notified the state of those layoffs in late March by filing a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN notice, with the Idaho Department of Labor in compliance with a federal law that requires employers to give workers advance notice so they can start looking for a new job. WARN notices are generally required when companies with 100 or more employees shut down or have mass layoffs.

As of Wednesday, a WARN notice had not yet been posted to the state’s running list, which it updates as necessary. Rumbeck told the Statesman that the new reorganization did not meet the WARN threshold.

Blue Cross of Idaho announced in December that it plans to sell its 34-acre headquarters campus in Meridian, where it’s been based since 1997, and downsize to a new location elsewhere in the Treasure Valley — a process it says could take years — as its workforce has largely become hybrid.

Rumbeck told the Statesman then that over 800 employees work at the Meridian campus. Across the state, the nonprofit employs 1,113 people, plus about 100 people who work fully remote from out of state.

Blue Cross of Idaho was founded in 1945 and has roughly 600,000 members, according to its website. It is the only Idaho-based insurer serving the entire state.