Cigna just merged dental & mental health. Wow, Sean Carroll is going to be 2x busy for the same pay. Mental Dental, they should just let Dr. Seuss lead cigna at this point.
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@1bs THANK YOU
I can’t believe the Dr. Seuss poem was deleted. How lame. I copied it and emailed it to a friend, so here it is again below:
Dental and Mental- it’s Fundamental!
The news from the cubicles buzzed and it zinged,
Of an HR email that loudly went ding!
“Good morning!” it chirped with an insincere grin,
“We’re blending two things! Isn’t synergy in?”
Said Cigna execs, “Now it’s time to comply,”
“With Dental and Mental we’ll reach for the sky!”
A merger! A marriage! A mash-up supreme!
Two businesses combined in a PowerPoint dream!
At the helm sat Cordani—Sir David, no less—
With Mr. Evanko in fiscal finesse.
They nodded in rhythm, “now who can we scr*w?”
As headcount projections came clearly in view.
“Our mission!” they boomed in a values-based way,
(Displayed on a slide with a heart icon, yay):
“To improve the health and vitality too—
Of all of the people we say we serve—woo!”
They smiled at the words like they’d solved every ill,
While circling roles with a downsizing quill.
For ‘health,’ as defined in the boardroom that day,
Meant trimming the humans who stood in their way.
“Why two teams?” said Finance. “That won’t do at all.
One understaffed unit will answer the call.”
So dentists and therapists watched with dismay
As ‘vitality’ marched their coworkers away.
“Oh care is our culture!” the messaging sang,
As calendars filled with a reorg ker-bang!
“We see you! We hear you!” the slogans declared,
Then vanished the jobs of the folks who had cared.
But down in the break rooms, with coffee gone cold,
The workers felt wounded. The story felt old.
For when buzzwords dance in with a clickety-clack,
Jobs tiptoe straight out with their boxes all packed.
What do molars and minds even share in this tale?
A billing code? Spreadsheet? A cost-cutting trail?
But questions like these tend to slow down the train,
And trains full of synergy don’t stop for the sane.
Oh Cigna, our Cigna, so mission-aligned,
With values so shiny they almost seem kind.
You chant ‘those we serve’ like a lullaby sweet,
While serving pink slips in a rhythm so neat.
And maybe one day, in a boardroom up high,
They’ll admit ‘we care’ is just simply a lie.
So here’s to the workers, resilient and wise,
Who see through the glitter and corporate disguise.
@fg Behavioral moved out from under Evernorth in Sept, I believe.
@gg Yes looks like it got deleted. Hope they saved the poem to repost.
What happened to that awesome Seuss-style poem someone wrote? I told a coworker to go check it out and they said it wasn’t there. Did someone delete it? It was the best thing I’ve seen on this site.
@fg ouch - sorry about typos. Let me try again:
OK, that may still be the legal entity but Behavioral is fully aligned as a Cigna Healthcare product now and we gave up on standalone business.
And with mental health parity, I don’t see Cigna selling Behavioral. It is a product that is essentially embedded in Medical.
@fg OK, that may still the legal entity but Behavioral is fully aligned as a Cigna Healthcare product now and gave up on standalone business.
And with mental health parity I don’t see Cigna selling Behavioral. It is ableist that is essentially embedded in Medical.
@ek I can tell you Behavioral is 100% Evernorth. The legal entity is Cigna, business is done under Evernorth Health Services
@ek That being merged in Cigna is even worse news
@ag loved this!!!
@ek 0 and no optimism for this company. Definitely fire sale. All my providers in dental refuse Cigna.
@eh I don’t see the regulators approving that. PBMs are already being targeted by the government and they’re unlikely to OK a mega PBM merger.
Also, Behavioral and Dental aren’t part of Evernorth. They’re part of Cigna Healthcare, so I’m not sure how that’s relevant to this post.
@dv Absolutely. I see Optum and Evernorth merging.And Optum is UHC which is terrible.
@dv i’m not sure about that. Behavioral and Dental are both businesses that actually make money. We totally rely on pharmacy, behavioral and dental to make up for our inability to make money on medical standalone.
Bundling assets for the inevitable fire sale .
Sounds familiar… they’re getting lazy on us. Spoiler alert: This massive merge game plan does not end well. Don’t hold your breath for that pay bump.
Did you use CoPilot to generate that Suess poem? At least it's something useful for the AI to do lol
@ag this is great!
@a4 A friend of mine, her supervisor in her dept said they were notified he can only give up to 4% raise to a few and the rest will get a little lower.
@ag That was legendary and spot on! 10/10
I really hope you aren't one of the people who were laid off since you are obviously creative and insightful. Or, maybe that's WHY you'd be laid off. Hmm.
@ag These workers are gone:
So here’s to the workers, resilient and wise,
Who see through the glitter and corporate disguise.
@ag ok not gonna lie that was really good
@ac
How many clinicians and dentists do you know?
All the clinicians and dentists I know refuse to take Cigna now. They are really good too.
What? Did some genius literally say, “Hey, dental and mental rhyme. Let’s put them together!”
Or did some exec think, “the brain and the mouth are both in the skull so let’s combine those businesses? “
This will work about as well as when we moved Behavioral to Evernorth a few years ago and tried to sell it as a standalone product - and sold zero business.
@a4 sad really. The extra responsibilities will most flow down hill.
Our last meeting, we were also told we would be absorbing other depts as well but couldn’t answer “will we be getting a higher raise since we’ll be doing more?” She couldn’t answer that, she said she’ll have to ge back at us.