Optum's 2023 deals included health systems, physician groups, technology groups and Uber.
Here are four notes on Optum's transactions in 2023:
1. Optum and Uber inked a deal that will cover some Medicare Advantage beneficiaries' purchases in the Uber app. The offerings, which began Jan. 1, allow members with a health benefit card issued on Optum's payments platform to purchase rides and groceries and over-the-counter items for delivery
2. Optum struck a deal with Waukesha, Wis.-based ProHealth Care in which it will hire more than 800 of its employees. Other health system deals inked by Optum in 2023 include a partnership with the Northern Light Health in Brewer, Maine, and Owensboro (Ky.) Health.
3. Optum's $1.51 billion acquisition of EMIS Group, a health technology firm, was approved by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. EMIS supplies data management systems to the U.K.'s National Health Service, including the electronic patient record system used by most NHS general practitioners.
4. Optum also looked to physician groups in 2023. In September, a $3.3 billion acquisition of La.-based Amedisys, a home health and hospice provider, was approved. In February, Optum acquired Middletown, N.Y.-based multispecialty physician group Crystal Run Healthcare and closed on a multimillion-dollar deal to acquire home health and hospice company LHC Group.