United Health Group to Sell Facilities for Acquisition
United Health Group, based in Eden Prairie, plans to divest 164 home sanitation and hospice facilities, primarily located in the South, as part of its strategy to facilitate a $3.3 billion acquisition of large-scale home health providers, as detailed in a settlement proposal submitted on Thursday.
The acquisition of Louisiana’s Amedisys has faced federal scrutiny. Concerns were raised that, if allowed to proceed, United Health, the largest company in Minnesota, could hinder competition in the home health and hospice market.
The Department of Justice stated that these anti-competitive issues would be mitigated through the settlement, which involves decreasing the number of facilities UnitedHealth would acquire in crucial markets.
Abigail Slater, assistant director of the DOJ’s antitrust division, emphasized that “the settlement protects the quality and pricing competition for numerous vulnerable patients and maintains wage competition for thousands of nurses.”
Federal authorities, along with four states, expressed alarm over the Amedisys acquisition, especially following United Health’s earlier $5.4 billion purchase of LHC Group, another competitor based in Louisiana. The antitrust complaint highlighted that Amedisys is the largest home health and hospice provider in the U.S., with LHC ranked third as of 2023.
UnitedHealth Group operates UnitedHealthcare, America’s largest health insurance company, and is expanding its health services division, Optum. The company already manages a growing network of medical offices, surgical centers, and emergency care clinics nationwide, and is now integrating home health providers as part of a competitive landscape with major health systems and insurance firms.
Concerns from federal authorities indicated that acquiring Amedisys could give UnitedHealth excessive control over the U.S. home health market, likely driving up prices by limiting competition. To remedy this, the settlement will provide UnitedHealth with a two- to three-month timeframe to sell the 164 facilities to either Brightspring Health from Kentucky or the Pennant Group from Idaho, pending federal approval.
The facilities that are being sold contribute approximately $528 million in annual revenue. The proposed settlement was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, with most of the facilities located in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee.
