UnitedHealth is on a buying spree of outpatient surgery centers

UnitedHealth Group quietly acquired dozens of outpatient facilities in 2023, with a particular focus on surgery centers, according to a STAT review of company financial filings.

Those acquisitions — nearly all of which the company never announced — build on the network of some 90,000 physicians UnitedHealth Group has amassed in recent years.

Many of the new centers sit in geographic areas where UnitedHealth is the biggest Medicare Advantage player, based on the latest insurance market share data. That overlap reinforces how UnitedHealth, which is expected to register $400 billion in revenue this year, is looking to funnel more of its insurance members toward providers that it owns. That strategy, known as vertical integration, allows UnitedHealth to capture more profit, and UnitedHealth’s pursuit of it has caught the attention of federal antitrust regulators.

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