2 dozen administrative workers at Everett Clinic laid off

EVERETT — Some 24 employees of The Everett Clinic have been laid off, the first job cuts since the medical group was bought by DaVita HealthCare Partners last year for $405 million.

The layoffs were in administrative positions and didn’t affect employees providing direct patient care. The organization has about 2,400 employees.

An Everett Clinic spokeswoman declined to comment, saying a DaVita spokesman was the only person authorized to discuss the layoffs.

The local job cuts were part of layoffs in non-medical jobs across DaVita Medical Group, which includes health care organizations in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Tampa and Orlando, Florida; Los Angeles and Orange County, Las Vegas and Everett.

Overall, some 350 positions in those organizations were eliminated. Fewer than 200 involved layoffs, according to a DaVita statement.

DaVita Medical Group has about 12,000 employees so the job cuts and layoffs affected about 3 percent of its medical group workers.

The statement said the elimination of the jobs was “an agonizing decision.”

The Everett Clinic, an independent medical group since its founding in 1924, first announced plans to become part of DaVita in the fall of 2015.

The purchase was completed in February 2016. At the time, company officials said it would allow The Everett Clinic to expand much more quickly than it could have on its own.

Since then it opened a new $17 million clinic in Shoreline last year, its first in King County, as well as a $3 million community clinic in the Thomas Lake neighborhood near Mill Creek in December. In January, it opened a $10 million outpatient surgery center and walk-in clinic in Edmonds

It purchased Totem Lake Family Medicine in Kirkland in April.

It opened a new 5,340-square-foot clinic in Woodinville in July and has announced plans to open a clinic in Bothell in December.

It currently has 330,000 patients.

Sharon Salyer:425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.