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Health care company to double its Rochester area work force

Bruce Caswell, president and general manager of Maximus Health Services, flanked by state and local officials at Monday's announcement.
Zack Seward
/
WXXI
Bruce Caswell, president and general manager of Maximus Health Services, flanked by state and local officials at Monday's announcement.

An international company that processes Medicare appeals is more than doubling its footprint in the Rochester area.

Maximus Federal Services already employs about 160 workers in Victor and Fairport.

Now, the Virginia-based company is expanding to a new Pittsford location, opening its doors in mid-May with roughly 325 workers.

Maximus' Bruce Caswell says the new jobs draw on the region's talented work force.

"These are clinicians, these are nurses, these are physical therapists, these are individuals that are adjudicating complex claims," Caswell said. "And it's not everywhere you can find that skill."

Caswell was joined by a slew of state and local politicians at Monday's announcement.

Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy says the expansion is a win for Monroe County.

"We have our great universities, great talent, great workforce," Duffy said. "It is a natural attraction for people - like Bruce and Maximus - to come here."

That doesn't mean New York State didn't help out with financial assistance.

The expansion was aided by $2 million in tax credits from Empire State Development.

While officials say the Maximus expansion is a win for New York, it's a loss for Pennsylvania: adding new jobs in Pittsford is the result of closing an office outside Philadelphia.

"We have been on a full-scale hiring assault for the past eight weeks," said Dan Miller, the operations director for the local Maximus office. "We announced the closure of the Pennsylvania office on March 1, and we began hiring people on March 2."

Maximus says it plans to add another 25 employees in the next year.

The company expects to add a total of more than 300 jobs over the next five years.

Maximus is a billion-dollar, publicly-traded company. It's the nation's largest provider of both Medicare appeals adjudication and Medicaid enrollment services, according to company officials.

The company's new Rochester office will be located at 3750 Monroe Ave, Pittsford, N.Y., near the Erie Canal.

The building was formerly a Singer sewing machine factory, according to Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks.

WXXI/Finger Lakes reporter for the Innovation Trail.