UnitedHealth Group headquarters.
News UnitedHealth Group’s Optum unit may be ready to acquire a payment processing service could be a sign the nation’s largest health insurer is ready to spend billions of dollars to further build out its network of provider and payer operations.
The Wall Street Journal late last week reported UnitedHealth is going to spend more than $3 billion on privately held Equian, which says it offers “end-to-end payment” services, managing more than $500 million in claims data.
If the story is accurate, Equian would seem to fit Optum’s services to medical care providers, employers and payers. Neither UnitedHealth nor Optum would confirm talks or a deal with Equian, saying they don’t comment on rumors.
The deal talk comes just as UnitedHealth and Optum reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission to buy DaVita Medical Group, which will bring the health insurer’s Optum health services business physician practices, urgent care centers and outpatient operations in several key markets.
But Optum and UnitedHealth seems poised to set a pace when it comes to gobbling more provider and health benefits operations as rivals are wheeling and dealing to keep up in an escalating battle in the healthcare industry to put providers of medical care under the same umbrella as health insurance companies.
Pharmacy giant CVS Health last year bought Aetna, the nation’s third-largest health insurer; Cigna last year bought the PBM Express Scripts; insurer Humana has been signing deals with multiple providers in the home care, hospice and drugstore space while big Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans including Anthem and Health Care Service Corp. are investing in primary care doctor practices and outpatient clinics.
UnitedHealth and Optum have also been mentioned in reports lately regarding a final round of bidding against rival health insurer Anthem for Magellan Health. Magellan is known for its behavioral health services though it also has a pharmacy benefit management (PBM) business and Medicaid health plans.
Analysts have been speculating Anthem and UnitedHealth are in the lead to get Magellan, but Anthem earlier this month announced plans to buy Beacon Health Options, which is also seen as a play to expand into managing mental health conditions.
Insurers increasingly are working to address social determinants of their customers outside of traditional medical care and an estimated one in five American adults suffers from mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
