Ample Joy health agency lays off 100 in Corona after IEHP contract terminated
Ample Joy ABA Consulting Services, a Southern California healthcare provider for people with autism and other developmental disabilities, recently laid off 100 workers in Corona after a nonprofit healthcare provider in the Inland Empire terminated its contract.
The Inland Empire Health Plan, which serves more than 1.5 million residents in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, canceled the contract with Ample Joy late last year, according to a letter filed with the state’s Employment Development Department.
“The termination was initiated by IEHP and issued without cause,” wrote Nneka Nwani, chief executive officer with Los Angeles-based Ample Joy, in the EDD letter. “Due to the severity of this termination and its substantial adverse impact on the company’s operations, workforce, and service continuity, Ample Joy ABA was required to implement a reduction in force resulting from a loss of available work.”
Ample Joy lists locations for its services in Corona, Palm Springs and in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Nwani could not be reached for comment on whether the Corona office was closed.
Last August, Jarrod McNaughton, chief executive officer of IEHP, told the Press-Enterprise that changes in federal and state medical funding could leave at least 300,000 people uninsured in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. About half of the 300,000 expected to lose Medi-Cal coverage are undocumented immigrants, McNaughton said.
Medi-Cal - California's Medicaid program - provides free or low-cost coverage to low-income residents, including families, children, seniors and people with disabilities.
An IEHP spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment on the Ample Joy ABA termination, and whether other contract cancelations are in the works.
The catalyst behind the changes at IEHP is the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bell Act, or HR 1, signed into law last summer by President Donald Trump.
The law is making sweeping cuts of nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, the largest funding reduction in the program's 60-year history.
As states such as California brace for steep cuts, more than 400 hospitals statewide have already laid off more than 3,400 health care workers as of mid-March, with as many as 1,600 coming from Santa Barbara to Orange County and the Inland Empire area, according to a tally of layoffs provided by EDD and data collected by the California Hospital Association of Southern California.
While the layoffs at Ample Joy were first disclosed this month in its filing with the EDD, Nwani said the actual termination of the employees occurred Feb. 2, according to the filing made as part of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act - commonly referred to as WARN.
Such notices are required when an employer lays off more than 50 employees. All affected employees are supposed to be notified at least 60 days before their terminations are scheduled to occur.
The jobs listed in the EDD layoff notice include behavior technicians, case managers and supervisors, and training coordinators.
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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 9:32 AM.