Mollen Clinics shuts Valley HQ

Immunization clinics’ future unclear after contract loss

Mollen Immunization Clinics closes its Scottsdale headquarters in a move that officials call a downsizing. The nationwide chain, which lost a contract with Walmart, did not say how many clinics would close nor how many employees would lose jobs.

The company that built a nationwide chain of immunization clinics featuring the name of a metro Phoenix family physician has shut down its Scottsdale headquarters after losing a contract with Walmart.

Mollen Immunization Clinics closed its Scottsdale headquarters this month in what compa- ny officials described as a downsizing. The company did not say how many clinics would close nor how many employees lost jobs.

“Mollen Immunization Clinics has been in the process of evaluating its strategic business options as the health-care landscape continues to evolve. ... The board authorized a difficult but necessary task of downsizing its workforce,” Terrie Robinson, Mollen’s chief financial officer, said in an e-mail.

Art Mollen, a Scottsdale osteopathic physician, launched the immunization clinic in 1989 but sold the business in 2008 to San Francisco-based Health Evolution Partners. Mollen said he had heard rumors about changes at the clinic he founded but said he was unaware the Scottsdale headquarters had closed.

“It is disappointing. It absolutely is,” Mollen said. “Hopefully they will rise above it and do something else and create something that is bigger and better.”

Although Mollen sold his stake in the chain of clinics, he maintains a private medical practice and is active in his foundation, the Mollen Foundation Preventing Childhood Obesity.

“I am a physician first and an entrepreneur second,” Mollen said. “Medicine is my love and my passion.”

Mollen Immunization’s website describes the company as the “largest independent mass immunizer in the country.” The Scottsdale headquarters supported a network of nurses in 50 states that administered influenza vaccine at stores such as Walmart and private businesses that sought immunizations for employees.

But former employees say Mollen Immunization lost its

contract with Walmart. A Walmart spokeswoman said the retail giant does not discuss the company’s contracts with suppliers and vendors, but Walmart’s “Flu Shots” website lists Michigan-based Summitt Health as the company’s immunization provider.

It’s unclear whether Mollen Immunization is still dispatching nurses to worksites or retailers to administer flu or other vaccines. Robinson would not say whether the company still has clinics or other operations.

Mollen Immunization employed 30,000 nurses and maintained a database of 200,000 nurses across the U.S., the company said in a September 2012 news release. The same news release said 25,000 nurses worked at Walmart immunization centers.

Tracy Diamond, an Atlantaarea nurse, said she was a Mollen Immunization employee who worked seasonal jobs at Walmart and Sam’s Club locations in Georgia and Alabama.

Mollen Immunization typically posted job opportunities on its Web portal for nurses like herself. When she noticed there were no jobs listed on the company’s Web-based job board, she called Mollen Immunization’s Scottsdale headquarters. No one answered her calls.

She later checked social media and nursing job boards and learned of similar complaints from nurses. She discovered a company memo posted by another nurse on the nursing magazine and website, Nurses Lounge. The memo said the company’s schedule was “on hold.”

“We will update you shortly with news about changes at Mollen and future opportunities for you. We look forward to our continued partnership, and regret this inconvenience,” the memo said.

Diamond said she was not paid for three hours of company-mandated online training. She believes she should be paid for the work, but she is more upset about the lack of communication from Mollen Immunization’s headquarters.

“If I had a flu clinic and I decided not to work, they’d expect me to notify them,” Diamond said. “To just disappear like that, it’s pretty cowardly.”