AMR to Lay Off 51 at Northeast Regional Billing Office

Feb. 14--NEW HAVEN -- American Medical Response plans to lay off 51 employees at its Northeast regional headquarters at 55 Church St. April 13, the company confirmed Tuesday.

The employees were told Monday the company plans to consolidate its billing operations to a larger patient services center in Akron, Ohio, said AMR spokeswoman Deborah Hileman.

"The decision to move billing operations was not an easy one, but the company determined after careful consideration of all its options that consolidating billing services to fewer locations will be more cost-effective for the company and for our patients and customers," she said Tuesday.

The New Haven billing center employees were offered the opportunity to relocate to Akron or to another patient services center, she said. Full-time employees who do not relocate will receive severance packages and outplacement services.

The Colorado-based ambulance service established its Northeast regional headquarters here in 1995. At that time, the region included Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. Today it has expanded to include 20 states from Florida to Maine.

The New Haven headquarters initially employed 75 people on two floors of the 55 Church St. building. Last year, the company consolidated onto one floor, and it's not clear how many people work there currently.

The company's Greater New Haven ambulance corps operates out of 58 Middletown Ave. in New Haven.

A spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Labor said state officials have not been notified about the pending layoffs yet. State law requires layoffs above 50 workers to be publicly disclosed.

The former New Haven Ambulance Co. was one of four ambulance services nationwide that banded together in 1991 to create American Medical Response. AMR then started buying up ambulance services nationwide, and today has more than 17,000 paramedics, emergency medical technicians, nurses, doctors and support staff in 250 emergency medical care facilities throughout the country.

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