Minnesota-based UnitedHealth sets up PHL back office operations 

UnitedHealth Group Inc., America's largest health insurer, has started recruiting Filipino nurses for Philippine back office operations for offshore business support services. 

 

House Deputy Majority Leader Roman Romulo, a key supporter of the business process outsourcing industry in the Philippines, on Monday said the move of UnitedHealth was "....another strong vote of confidence in [the] Philippines, coming no less from a major American corporation in the US Dow Jones 30 [stock exchange index]."

 

“We welcome UnitedHealth’s decision to transfer to Manila various labor-intensive, information technology-enabled business support functions,” he said in a statement. 

 

Ranked No. 22 in the Fortune 500 largest US corporations by gross revenue, UnitedHealth started hiring local staff that include Filipino registered nurses with hospital experience, BPO exposure, and who have active US licenses.

 

The nurses are being signed up to perform Philippine-based jobs as “nurse associates, clinical quality analysts and clinical managers,”  the statement read. 

 

UnitedHealth’s facility in the Philippines would be located in a new in-house center at the McKinley Hill Cyberpark in Taguig City.

 

Romulo earlier predicted that the US Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – also called  Obamacare – would enable more Americans to obtain health insurance and, at the same time, boost the Philippine BPO sector.

 

Obamacare will allow 30 million more Americans to qualify for health insurance benefits under new subsidies and tax credits to employers and individuals, among other mechanisms. It also mandates reforms to simplify and cut down the cost of health care in America.

 

Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth serves more than 75 million people worldwide, mostly in America, through a network of 754,000 physicians and other health care professionals, and 5,400 hospitals.

 

The company had an annual net profit of $5.142 billion on gross revenue $101.86 billion, according to Fortune Magazine.

 

Romulo, author of the new Data Privacy Act of the Philippines, anticipated global corporations to either establish in-house back offices in Manila, or relegate their non-core, business support activities to independent BPO firms operating here.

 

The law directs all entities, including BPO companies, to protect the confidentiality of personal information collected from clients and stored in IT systems in compliance with rigorous international privacy standards.

 

Based on an industry roadmap, the BPO industry is expected to cough up $27 billion in revenues and directly engage some 1.3 million Filipino workers by 2016.

 

This year, the Business Processing Association of the Philippines said the industry was poised to generate $13 billion in revenues and 764,000 full-time jobs. — VS, GMA News