Sunshine Health, a Sunrise managed health-care company that was a big winner in Florida's long-term care contracts last year, is doubling its workforce in South Florida to provide services to low-income seniors and the disabled.

The company said it is on a mission to provide improved health care to the low-income and disabled communities at a reduced cost to government.

Preventative care is the key, said Chris Paterson, chief executive for Sunrise-based Sunshine Health.

"We try to identify members who will need more help than others," he said.

Sunshine Health, which also provides other Medicaid services, has a total of 215,000 residents under its care in the state, with one-third of them in South Florida.

In 2013, the company bid and won contracts for 10 of the 11 regions in the state, including Broward and Palm Beach counties. It will share in providing long-term care for the approximately 90,000 residents eligible for Medicaid services.

In total, Sunshine has won $16 billion worth of contracts over five years to provide medical assistance and long-term care to Florida's Medicaid population, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration said.

To expand its services, Sunshine Health is hiring up to 800 nurses, social workers and other health care professionals in South Florida. They will be mostly in the field providing services such as nursing, medication management or physical therapy.

Another 600 specialists for Cenpatico, a behavioral and foster care company owned by the same parent firm, will be hired over the next six months, the company said.

Sunshine Health uses a cost-reduction model for providing health-care services developed by parent firm Centene Corp., which operates in nearly 20 states. The St. Louis-based Fortune 500 company is known for its proprietary database called "Centelligence" that helps predict the likelihood a patient will need costly hospital or emergency care.

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Sunrise health care firm aims to cut Medicaid costs