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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 through higher prices and utilization.
Consolidation can also raise anti-trust concerns. “If payers incentivize referral patterns of their employed physicians to favor other physicians employed by the payer, it can reduce competition by restricting consumer choice,” said Singh.
A potential merger between Cigna and Humana that could happen by the end of the year will likely face intense scrutiny as it would create a company that rivals the size of UnitedHealth Group or CVS Health. If it goes through, the duo could streamline its insurance offerings and leverage each other’s care delivery platforms, clinics, and provider workforce.
The Biden Administration has sought to strengthen anti-trust statutes to prevent industry monopolies and consumer harm, and the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission have proposed new merger guidelines that have yet to be finalized.
According to Singh, some of Optum’s medical practice purchases may bypass anti-trust statutes since most prospective mergers and acquisitions are reviewed only if they exceed a specific value ($101 million for 2023). Limited transparency in ownership structures further complicates matters. Plus, Singh says instances where physicians are hired instead of acquired through mergers would not be subject to current anti-trust laws.
The ‘corporatization’ of healthcare is not good for patients or physicians, said Robert McNamara, MD, chief medical officer of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Physician Group and co-founder of Take Medicine Back, a physician group advocating to remove corporate interests from healthcare.
“If you ask a physician what causes them the most moral conflict, they’ll tell you it’s the insurance companies denying something they want to do for their patients,” he said. “To have the doctors now working for the insurance industry conflicts with a physician’s duty to put the patient first.”
McNamara, chair of emergency medicine at Temple University’s Katz School of Medicine, told Medscape that more than half the states in the US have laws or court rulings that support protecting physician autonomy from corporate interests. Still, he hopes a federal prohibition on private equity’s involvement in healthcare can soon gain traction. Last month, Take Medicine Back raised a resolution at the American Medical Association’s interim House of Delegates meeting, which he said was subsequently referred to a committee.
Emergency medicine was among the first specialties to succumb to private equity firms, but McNamara said that all types of healthcare providers and entities — from cardiology and urology to addiction treatment centers and nursing homes — are being swallowed up by larger organizations, including payers.
UHC was named in a class action suit last month for allegedly shirking doctors’ orders and relying on a flawed algorithm to determine the length of skilled nursing facility stays for Medicare Advantage policyholders.
At the investor meeting, Desai reiterated Optum’s desire to continue expanding care delivery options, especially in its pharmacy and behavioral health business lines, and focus on adopting value-based care. He credited the rapid growth to developing strong relationships with providers and standardizing technology and clinical systems.
Steph Weber is a Midwest-based freelance journalist specializing in healthcare and law.
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