To My Former Colleagues,
After five years of dedicated service, I am writing to share some honest reflections upon my departure. I do so not out of bitterness, but out of genuine care for the members we serve, the colleagues I leave behind, and the organization Humana once represented to me. Please note that a formal complaint has been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding the circumstances surrounding my termination.
Humana used to be a place to be proud to work for. I believe that can still be true, but it requires honest conversation about what is happening at the ground level — specifically within the SNP department.
On member-centered care:
Over the course of my time here, I have watched a gradual but consistent shift away from truly member-centered care. Clinical and medical professionals with advanced degrees and years of experience are being asked to operate as if care management is a checklist exercise rather than a clinical practice. Members have a right to drive their own care through self-determination, and that principle is being overshadowed by a metric-driven culture that prioritizes box-checking over meaningful outcomes.
On staff support and training:
The bar for performance is continuously raised while training, re-education, and support resources remain minimal. Staff are expected to retain and apply an ever-growing body of requirements with little structured reinforcement. Questions raised by staff regarding member complaints — including concerns about the frequency of contact calls and the repetition of surveys — go unaddressed. This is not sustainable, and it is the members who ultimately pay the price.
On clinical judgment:
Clinical judgment is one of the most valuable tools a trained social worker or care manager brings to their work. When that judgment is not valued, not supported, and not protected — the quality of care suffers. I experienced this firsthand, and I know I am not alone.
As social workers, we are trained and ethically obligated to drill down into a member's full picture before making clinical decisions — that is the foundation of our profession. However, staff have been explicitly directed to limit prework when pulling tasks, to move quickly to the next case, and to prioritize throughput because we are a high UTC department. This directive has been reinforced through process changes that functionally reduce the depth of member assessment prior to contact. You cannot simultaneously hold staff to a high clinical standard and instruct them to move through cases as quickly as possible without meaningful prework. These two expectations are in direct conflict, and it is the member who suffers the consequence of that contradiction.
On Policy and Leadership Accountability:
Upper management has demonstrated a pattern of applying policy subjectively and selectively. The very policy used to govern this department contains the following disclaimer clause:
“This (policy/standard) is subject to change or termination by Humana at any time. Humana has full and final discretionary authority for its interpretation and application. This (policy/standard) supersedes all other policies, standards, guidelines, procedures or information conflicting with it.”
To be clear about what this means: this is not a standalone policy — it is a disclaimer clause embedded within a policy, and it is routinely used by management to justify interpreting policy however it fits their narrative at any given time. It grants management full and final authority over how any policy is interpreted and applied, with no meaningful checks or balances. In practice, this means staff can be held to a standard today that did not exist yesterday, with no consistent or objective measure by which performance is truly evaluated. A policy governed by a clause that permits unlimited reinterpretation at will is not a standard — it is a moving target, and this is precisely the pattern that has defined SNP department management.
Different members of management and different auditors interpret the same information differently, with no clear or consistent direction provided to staff. Changes are made swiftly and without transparency, leaving front-line workers to navigate shifting expectations with minimal guidance. SNP management would have you believe there is a clear standard to follow — there honestly is not one.
What exists instead is a culture of gaslighting, masked by coffee chats, business acumen Zoom sessions, and feedback channels like “What’s on Your Mind” that consistently go unheard. Leadership actively discourages staff from being “negative” rather than genuinely listening to the real, documented concerns of their front-line workers. Feedback is collected and quietly shelved, while the same systemic issues persist.
The result of these tactics is a department marked by low morale and a profound lack of engagement. We work remotely, and while that comes with its own dynamic, silence across a Teams chat for hours on end is not normal — and it is not reflective of the environment that once existed within this organization. When I first joined Humana, my team and manager were warm, welcoming, and genuinely engaged. There was a sense of community and shared purpose that made remote work feel connected rather than isolating. That culture has eroded significantly, and the silence that now fills the team chat is not a coincidence — it is a symptom of a workforce that has been worn down and disengaged by the very leadership that should be inspiring them.
This department is being operated like a high-volume restaurant — turning over members quickly for the sake of business metrics and financial outcomes rather than placing the member at the center of care where they belong. The consequences of this culture are visible on both ends of the employment spectrum. New hires are leaving within weeks of finishing onboarding training. Those with long tenures within the company are either choosing to retire or being pushed out by upper management. That is not a coincidence — it is a reflection of an environment that is not sustainable for staff or for the members they are meant to serve.
I would strongly encourage those with the authority to do so to take a serious, unfiltered look at how the SNP department is truly being run.
Furthermore, the process surrounding my termination lacked consistency and legitimacy. It is my position that the standards applied to my performance were not enforced uniformly within the department. This concern, along with others outlined in this letter, is part of my formal EEOC complaint, which is currently being processed through the appropriate legal channels.
I would encourage leadership and HR to take a close, honest look at the pattern of departures within this department over the past year — specifically among experienced, long-tenured employees who have given years of dedicated service to this organization. I was an employee with no disciplinary action in five years, and I was pushed out within 90 days of being informed that a PIP was desired by upper management. These patterns are worth examining carefully, and they are now being examined through the appropriate legal channels.
Additionally, I want to note that during the process surrounding my termination, I was treated in a manner that I found to be disrespectful and unprofessional by an HR representative — being spoken over, interrupted, and not afforded the basic courtesy of being heard when asking legitimate questions. Every employee deserves to be treated with dignity, regardless of the circumstances.
On a Pattern That Extends Beyond My Experience:
It is important to note that the concerns I have raised are not unique to my experience. In March 2026, a nursing colleague with over 20 years of nursing experience and over four years at Humana submitted a formal resignation letter that was distributed to the broader SNP nursing staff. Rather than acknowledging the concerns raised or committing to any resolution, the letter was swiftly retracted from recipients’ email inboxes — an action that speaks for itself. The attempt to suppress this communication rather than address it is consistent with the same culture of silencing front-line voices described throughout this letter. That resignation letter is included below in full, as every concern it raises independently corroborates what I have documented above:
Subject: formal resignation – 3.16.26
To: Nina Owsley, HR4U
CC: Robert Mouser; All_CM_Associates; All Associates; Humana
HR & Nina, I am submitting this letter as a formal notice of my resignation from my position as telephonic care manager effective 3/30/26. As someone who has been a nurse for over 20 years and has been with Humana for over 4 years, this decision was not made lightly but ultimately, with today’s culture, it was not a hard decision either. I feel it both my right and my professional responsibility to document the conditions that have made continued employment untenable with Humana as discussed below.
Retaliation & Protected Leave – I have experienced what I believe to be retaliatory treatment following my use of protected leave and my part-time status, both of which are safeguarded under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and applicable state law. Specifically, I was subjected to disproportionate scrutiny, adverse scoring on my AIP, and a previously undisclosed eligibility restriction tied to part-time status. This pattern strongly suggests to me that protected characteristics influenced outcomes that were presented as purely PERFORMANCE-BASED but it now creates nondiscretionary expectations that is being treated as discretionary reward.
Favoritism and Inequitable Treatment – Consistent patterns of favoritism (over knowledge and skill) have been persistent & documented, including on many other platforms from past employees, and non-favored are under heightened scrutiny regardless of our performance including alleged discrimination (during CM leadership changes about 2 years ago my former team were all reassigned. Every person of color from our former team was either fired or quit within 6 months).
Inequitable Bonus Structure: Associates vs Upper Leadership – Humana’s AIP disproportionately restricts and reduces bonuses for frontline associates while upper leadership continues to receive compensation largely insulated from the same restrictions. This disparity is made starker by publicly available SEC proxy data (Execpay.org) CEO pay from 2020-2024 from $16M-$18M including their base pay, incentives, & bonuses. All of this yields a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 195:1. Associating this executive enrichment with simultaneously restricting frontline associate bonuses reflects a value misalignment that cannot be reconciled and is what is the core route of most of today’s problems.
Leadership Failing to Uphold Humana’s Own Mission Statement and Ethics – Humana’s stated mission is to ‘help people achieve lifelong well-being.’ Its core values including care for associates, pioneering simplicity, and cultivating a culture of trust & ‘speaking up.’ The workplace culture I have experienced – including retaliation, micromanagement, undisclosed policy changes applied retroactively, and favoritism – stands in direct contradiction to these stated values. Let’s not forget Robert’s all CM meeting in Oct where he ‘was passionate’ because so many nurses were questioning MOP metrics and he compared us to his children & stated ‘I have never questioned a business need and that’s why I am where I am today.’ When reported by many employees, again no outcome or update. Leadership’s failure to model the values they publicly espouse is a structural failure, not an individual one. I challenge Humana to explain how this is a safe speak up culture if nurses are scolded for questioning & speaking up.
Micromanaging of RNs: Research-Backed Concerns – There is much research literature available on what happens when nursing professionals are subjected to excessive surveillance and control. Peer-reviewed studies published in journals including Nursing Open and BMC Nursing document that high workloads, poor leadership qualities, and lack of autonomy are among the strongest predictors of burnout & turnover intentions among RNs. Humana’s model for care managers involves monitoring every clinical interaction against rigid metrics, counting call outcomes outside of nurses’ control against their performance score, this is antithetical to evidence-based nursing practice and contributes directly to the burnout and moral distress that drives experienced nurses, like me, out of the profession. Humana touts its commitment to member health outcomes while simultaneously deploying management practices proven to degrade the clinical workforce.
Conclusion – I am leaving because in today’s world and political environment, the Humana environment has become professionally and personally unsustainable. I have raised concerns through appropriate channels. I filed a formal HR complaint last week. I have received no resolution. I am retaining my documentation related to my performance, AIP scoring, leader lead audits, & correspondence with management. I am aware of my rights under the FMLA, the NLRA, and applicable whistleblower protection statutes. I am providing this notice in good faith and ask that my final pay, accrued PTO, and any other owned compensation be processed in compliance with Missouri law. I am in a position that I can use my voice & hopefully it will be heard by Humana and positive changes may arise. I hope all the frontline associates receive the autonomy, respect, and equitable compensation they deserve.
This letter was sent in March 2026. It was retracted from inboxes rather than addressed. The same concerns it raised contributed to my termination three months later. That is not a coincidence — it is a pattern.
This occurred in the same period that SNP department leadership held a town hall in March 2026 directing social workers not to discuss workplace concerns with one another and to engage only in positive communication. Staff were explicitly told not to be negative. This directive — issued by the same leadership that publicly espouses a speak up culture — functionally silenced the very front-line voices that could have prompted meaningful change. You cannot claim to have a speak up culture while simultaneously instructing your workforce not to speak.
To my colleagues:
You are doing incredibly important work under increasingly difficult circumstances. Continue to advocate for your members, document everything, know your rights, and support one another. The work you do matters, even when it feels like the institution does not reflect that. If you have experienced similar treatment or witnessed patterns inconsistent with Humana’s stated values, know that there are formal channels available to you, including the EEOC.
I am proud of the care I provided to every member I worked with during my five years of service, and I leave with my integrity and my credentials intact.
Finally, I would like to return Humana’s equipment promptly. It is Humana’s responsibility to provide instructions on how to do so at no cost to me. Please send all relevant return information to my personal email address on file.
With respect,