APS is a name that you may not know much about in general, or one that you may have confused with another company with similar initials. For those of you who are not familiar with the company lets begin with a look at the way that the company has chosen to describe itself, “APS works collaboratively with Medicaid Agencies, state and local governments, health plans, employers and labor trust groups to meet today’s healthcare challenges through the design and delivery of innovative solutions and state of the art technologies. Tailored to address the needs and challengers unique to each population, our services include disease and care management, wellness and prevention, clinical quality and utilization review, and behavioral health.  APS also has been designated as a QIO-like organization by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, providing external quality review services, in addition to pre-admission screening, education and training, and waiver management services.”

Sadly the company is getting ready to make a mass layoff action happen in the near future, as they are cutting back on 133 workers on the whole as part of a new acquisition by management of Universal American Corp. Here is a look at the company’s latest release about the buy out, “Universal American Corp. (NYSE: UAM) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire APS Healthcare, Inc. (“APS Healthcare”), a leading provider of specialty healthcare solutions for $227.5 million. The transaction significantly enhances Universal American’s breadth of capabilities to participate in the emerging growth opportunities in healthcare, including the large dual eligible opportunity. APS Healthcare brings a full range of healthcare solutions, including disease management and care coordination, clinical quality and utilization review, and behavioral health services, that enable its customers to reduce healthcare costs and improve the quality of their care. APS Healthcare’s 400 customers include Medicaid Agencies, state and local governments, health plans, employers and labor trust groups and it serves approximately 30 government programs in 25 states and Puerto Rico covering over 17 million members, making it one of the largest specialty healthcare services companies in the country. APS Healthcare is headquartered in White Plains, NY with 2011 revenues of more than $300 million.”

This is, of course, not only time an acquiring company in the health care field has resulted to layoffs of the workers at the acquired company. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage here is a look at what happened between Aetna and Coventry when they merged, “But, those things do not always work when it comes to cutting the costs. As companies flag it creates an interesting situation from a strategic point of view. It allows companies that were less badly impacted by the economy to buy up flagging competitors and expand their own empires. While these kinds of acquisitions can result in stronger companies they also have a negative impact on the workforce for the companies. Take for example the recently announced merger of Coventry Health Care and Aetna… For the current moment the company has not said how many workers are set to be impacted by this kind of a merger, but when all is said and done the workers will no doubt feel some kind of an impact in terms of job losses. There will be some redundancy that will cut back on the number of staffers, though for not there is no hard number.”