By Joe Whittington
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Copyright 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
ST. LOUIS — A company in Lake Saint Louis that for 2004 billed Missouri nearly $41 million to transport Medicaid patients to doctors’ offices has laid off 60 to 80 employees since November, say some of those dismissed.
According to some, Medical Transportation Management Inc. gave as the reason for the “30 to 40" layoffs early in January a misprojection of what the company would realize from 2007 contracts, which are throughout the nation.
“Joe - MTM does not disclose any information reflecting personnel changes or financial information as we are a private company,” President and Chief Executive Alaina Maciá said in an e-mail reply to questions about layoffs and revenue misprojections. In an earlier phone call, she said “30 or 40 had been laid off,” not elaborating on when or why.
“We have a competitive business and as the company continues to have contracts that end, we adjust our staff accordingly,” said spokeswoman Sandra Spooner.
The non-emergency transportation business indeed is competitive, and one of those competitors, LogistiCare Solutions LLC of Atlanta, has dogged MTM through the bidding process.
In 2004, LogistiCare underbid MTM in Missouri after MTM had held the job for six years. The bid was tossed out because of a technicality.
After MTM paid $2.4 million to end an attorney general’s investigation into allegations of antitrust violations and Medicaid fraud in 2005, LogistiCare took over the contract. MTM also agreed to quit seeking $17.4 million for denied claims.
The loss of the Missouri contract was said to wipe out almost half of MTM’s bottom line.
LogistiCare then picked off MTM in Pennsylvania, taking a Philadelphia County contract after one year; and in January, LogistiCare took over three regions in Arkansas that MTM had serviced for three years.
“We did bid on the Arkansas contract,” said Maciá, “but we weren’t interested in continuing at the rate of reimbursement.
“Access2Care (a unit of St. Louis-based Abbott Ambulance) has also taken some of the ones we are not interested in continuing at the rate of reimbursement.”
Maciá said the company recently got a $10 million, five-year contract from South Carolina, renewed a $20 million contract in Minnesota and “will probably be the awarded for another $10 million annually five-year contract.”
Lynn and Peg Griswold, Maciá’s parents, founded the company a little more than a decade ago in rented space behind the IGA store on Wharf Street in Lake Saint Louis, so they’ve endured bumpy rides before.