UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of the nation’s largest private insurer, UnitedHealthcare (UHC), is now affiliated with or employs approximately 10% of the US physician workforce, raising anti-trust and noncompete concerns as more payers and private equity firms pursue medical practice acquisitions.
The company added 20,000 physicians in the last year alone, including a previously physician-owned multispecialty group practice of 400 doctors in New York. They join the growing web of doctors — about 90,000 of the 950,000 active US physicians — working for the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary, Optum Health, providing primary, specialty, urgent, and surgical care. Amar Desai, MD, chief executive officer of Optum Health, shared the updated workforce numbers during the healthcare conglomerate’s annual investor conference this week.
Healthcare mergers and consolidations have become more common as physician groups struggle to stay afloat amid dwindling payer reimbursements. Although private equity and health systems often acquire practices, payers like UHC are increasingly doing so as part of their model to advance value-based care.
Yashaswini Singh, PhD, healthcare economist and assistant professor of health services, policy, and practice at Brown University, says such moves mirror the broader trend in corporate consolidation of physician practices. She told Medscape Medical News that the integrated models could possibly enhance care coordination and improve outcomes, but the impact of payer-led consolidation has not been extensively studied.
Meanwhile, evidence on private equity ownership is just emerging. In a 2022 study published in JAMA Health Forum, with Singh as lead author, findings showed that private equity involvement increased healthcare spending throug