Australian Health Management has cut 12 positions at its Wollongong headquarters, just months after the implementation of its merger with Medibank Private.The Mercury can reveal six finance positions and six upper level management positions will be gone by the end of May.Ahm executive group manager Dean Tillotson, a former Medibank employee who took on the Wollongong role in December, rejected claims the company had gone back on commitments to jobs made when the merger was first proposed."I would absolutely not accept that," he said. "I think that the process from inception to where we are has been very transparent and has been very clear and concise."In July last year, Medibank Private managing director George Savvides told the Mercury "people ought not to be concerned about jobs"."It is unusual. I know with takeovers in other landscapes, the business model is devised on removing what people perceive to be duplication or whatever. We don't have any duplication in health management."On October 17, the Australian newspaper quoted an "ahm spokesman" saying: "Medibank will keep the ahm brand and there will be no job losses."Mr Tillotson said six senior managers have now left ahm after accepting packages. Six accounting positions will go as well, also due to "duplication" and the fact Medibank and ahm have different accounting systems.One new role will be created at Medibank's headquarters in Melbourne while Wollongong will also gain one, different role.Mr Tillotson said he had told staff in February and the United Services Union earlier."I could have waited until the end of April ... but we decided to let them know in advance," he said.He said the affected employees had been offered training to help them apply for work within, or outside, ahm.Two people had been redeployed to other roles in the company, two had left ahm to work elsewhere and the others were waiting to see if work could be found."At the end of May I don't honestly know how many individuals will have not found work within my business or externally," Mr Tillotson said. "Should any be unable to secure a role, we would offer them the redundancy payment."An ahm source told the Mercury that staff felt they had been misled about the job situation last year."The view here is that it was promised that there would be no redundancies and that every person's jobs would be safe," the source said."Now they are saying, 'well, overall job numbers will grow', but some workers who were in that meeting back then are going to be forced out."Mr Tillotson said staff were warned by Mr Savvides some positions would go. "On a number of occasions he's said there's potential for changes to occur."