SAN BERNARDINO >> Long Beach-based Molina Healthcare Inc. has opened an administrative office hub here that employs about 100 people, officials announced Thursday.
“We appreciate your vote of confidence in bringing these jobs,” San Bernardino Mayor Carry Davis, said during the formal announcement of the 20,000-square-foot office at 550 E. Hospitality Lane.
“We are making changes here after some difficult times,” Davis said, alluding to both the Dec. 2 terrorist attack and the city’s bankruptcy.
“We felt the pain” from Dec. 2, Deborah Miller, president of Molina Healthcare in California, said. “Some of our staff lost family members.”
The Hospitality Lane office will help provide administrative services for the 175,000 Molina members in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Richard Chambers, Molina senior vice president for policy and government advocacy, said during Thursday’s formal announcement. The office quietly opened with a skeleton staff late last year.
The San Bernardino location provided “beautiful office space,” good parking, a safe work environment and the convenience of nearby restaurants and stores, Chambers said.
“Employees just love it here,” he said.
Many of the hub administrative functions that now will be provided in San Bernardino were managed from an office in Pomona, he said. The Pomona office still serves that region.
Services housed in the new San Bernardino hub include healthcare services, contracting, provider services, community engagement and disability and senior access, officials said.
Prior to Pomona, a smaller number of administrative jobs were housed in a Colton building which offered no opportunity for expansion, Chambers said.
Josie Gonzales, 5th District County Supervisor, said it was good to land a plan that helps medically undeserved people in San Bernardino, following the departure of another one.
In 2013, Inland Empire Health Plan moved about 700 employees from 325 West Hospitality Lane to Rancho Cucamonga. The main IEHP office was little more than a mile west of the new Molina Healthcare location.
Both Molina and IEHP serve economically disadvantaged clients.
Molina, which has 4.3 million members in 12 states and Puerto Rico, operates satellite administrative offices for the two-county area in Corona and Victorville and plans to open another office in Rancho Mirage.
In San Bernardino County, its clinic offices are in Adelanto, Colton, Fontana, Ontario, Rialto, San Bernardino and Victorville, according to the Molina website.
Patients are not treated at the Hospitality Lane site.