Optum Buying Home Health Giant LHC Group
UnitedHealth’s Optum Health division has agreed to buy post-acute healthcare company LHC Group (NASDAQ: LHCG) for approximately $5.5 billion. LHC Group’s 30,000 employees provide more than 12 million annual in-home patient-focused interventions.
An Axios report notes that Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Optum is getting ready to defend its $13 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare at an August trial, and that Optum also is getting into behavioral health by buying Refresh Mental Health from private equity firm Kelso & Co.
Lafayette, La.-based LHC Group is one of the three largest home health providers, based on Medicare fee-for-service claims data, according to Home Health Care News. It provides home health, hospice, home- and community-based services, and facility-based care from 964 locations in 37 states and the District of Columbia.
The companies said that LHC Group’s experience with home- and community-based care matched with Optum’s extensive value-based care experience and resources will accelerate the combined companies’ ability to deliver integrated care, improving outcomes and patient experiences.
“LHC Group’s sophisticated care coordination capabilities and its warm, human touch is so important for home care, and will greatly enhance the reach of Optum’s value-based capabilities along the full continuum of care, including primary care, home and community care, virtual care, behavioral health and ambulatory surgery,” said Wyatt Decker, M.D., M.B.A., CEO of Optum Health, in a statement. “We greatly admire how the people of LHC Group have created a culture that enables them to be a trusted health care partner to patients and their families when they need it the most, and we look forward to working with and learning from them.”
The agreement calls for the acquisition of LHC Group’s common stock for $170 per share in cash and is expected to close in the second half of 2022.
