Update: VillageMD lays off 49 in first two of six Village Medical closures in Illinois

VillageMD starts releasing staff in soon-to-shut Illinois clinics. Layoffs have already started in the Illinois clinics owned and operated by Walgreens-owned VillageMD. As reported in Crain’s Chicago Business, two of their six Village Medical clinics have given notice to doctors, practice managers, medical assistants, registered nurses, and ultrasound and radiology technicians. This eliminated 24 positions at the Lincoln Park (Chicago) office and 25 positions at their Wheeling clinic, both free-standing independent locations. The layoffs took place between 20 February and 5 March. It is not clear from the article or the WARN Notice filed 20 February with the state Department of Commerce whether the layoffs take effect by or on 19 April or if the clinics are being run by a skeleton staff before closure. 

A website check of Village Medical locations in Illinois has banners on each location’s page confirming that they will close on 19 April. Illinois WARN notices have not been posted yet for the four other locations.The only co-located Walgreens-Village Medical location is in Elk Grove, so the five free-standing locations may not have been part of the 2021-22 expansion or had been acquired in separate transactions.

VillageMD is headquartered in Chicago with an original footprint mainly in the Midwest to Texas, expanding to the East (plus specialty and urgent care) when it acquired Summit Health/CityMD in January 2023 for $8.9 billion. 

A VillageMD spokesperson told Crain’s that laid-off full-time employees will receive an ‘exit package’ which indicates that part-time employees may receive little to no assistance. “Support for patients” is limited to urging them to contact their insurance company for help in locating a new physician and office, then assisting in transferring their records. The spokesperson did not disclose if current patients are in the process of being notified nor how.

Based upon these initial layoff numbers, Village Medical’s layoffs in Illinois will be upwards of 150 at minimum. Their spokesperson declined to reveal the full number of layoffs in Illinois. If 25 per location is extrapolated to 85 locations across Village Medical, layoffs will be ~ 2,125.

VillageMD has been remarkably silent to the press about the closures and reorganization. It has not issued a press release since last October. Additional background TTA 29 Feb.