Walgreens Health Initiatives opened the center in January and provides support services for UnitedHealth Group's Medicare Part D prescription drug plans. It signed a 10-year lease with the Research Park.
However, the contract between the two companies will end Dec. 31, and UnitedHealth Group will begin handling its own support services Jan. 1.
The change likely will result in little more than new signage, officials of both companies said Thursday.
"We expect to reach an agreement with UnitedHealth to continue those operations at the Oklahoma City facility with the current work force," Walgreens spokesman Michael Pozin said. "We don't have an agreement right now, but we are discussing it and working toward an agreement, and we do expect it."
Dominick Washington, Polzin's counterpart at Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group, provided a similar outlook.
"We do expect to reach an agreement that will allow the facility and the highly trained employees to transfer from Walgreens to us and have that be in effect by the end of the year," Washington said. "We really view that call center and the employees there to be a very important piece of our overall ability to deliver high quality prescription drug coverage to our Part D enrollees
"We are working very hard to come to an agreement that will allow us to execute that by the end of the year."
The contract between the two companies came to an abrupt end because UnitedHealth Group bought PacifiCare Health Systems, which had its own Part D program and pharmacy management services.
An employee at the Research Park call center, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said employees were told of the impending end of the contract by a Walgreens executive earlier this week.
If UnitedHealth Group takes over the call center as expected, few changes are anticipated, said J.R. Caton, vice president of Research Park operations. Walgreens leases 59,000 square feet of space on three floors of the 755 Research Park building.
"Hopefully, we'll roll right along with little apparent change in operations here," Caton said.
Prev
