UnitedHealth defends $3.3B Amedisys acquisition
One day after the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group to block its purchase of home health and hospice giant Amedisys, the insurer responded by mounting a defense in the court of public opinion.
UnitedHealth subsidiary Optum—which would take over Amedisys should the deal go through—launched a website Wednesday, touting the benefits of the $3.3 billion merger. Specifically, Optum’s argument rests on three central pillars: The transaction will streamline care delivery, improve value-based care initiatives, and it won’t stifle competition.
“The home health care market is highly competitive, with providers coming in many shapes and sizes. This will not change after the transaction. In fact, the combined Optum and Amedisys would operate just a fraction of all home health and hospice care centers nationally,” the website reads.
According to a Bloomberg report, the DOJ’s central concern is that the buyout of Amedisys would lead to too much consolidation, in violation of antitrust laws. The DOJ had tried to make a similar argument when UnitedHealth acquired Change Healthcare in 2021.
That lawsuit ultimately failed, and the transaction was finalized a year later.
Optum apparently attempted to alleviate the concerns of regulators this time around, offering to offload some 100 clinics to reduce the combined UnitedHealth-Amedisys hold over home care delivery, according to a source who spoke to Bloomberg. Optum seemingly confirmed this, writing that it “proactively addressed potential antitrust concerns through a robust proposed divestiture plan.”
“To ensure that robust competition continues, we agreed to divest a significant number of home health and hospice care centers to VitalCaring upon completion of this transaction,” Optum added.
VitalCaring currently operates 58 home and hospice care centers in six states and is a competitor of Amedisys.
This concession, however, was apparently not enough to ease the concerns of the DOJ, which argued in its lawsuit "UnitedHealth’s plan to extinguish Amedisys as a competitor” was achieved through acquisition, rather than competition.
This has been a repeated “intentional, sustained strategy” of UnitedHealth, the DOJ argued in the lawsuit.
It’s unclear whether a federal court will dismiss the antitrust lawsuit or let it go to trial.
Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.