News Briefs: UnitedHealth Bids on Another Home Care Provider

UnitedHealth Group’s Optum division on June 5 made an unsolicited, $3.3 billion all-cash offer to acquire home health care and hospice provider Amedisys, Inc. The offer, in which UnitedHealth would spend $100 per share, would trump a May merger agreement between Amedisys and fellow home health provider Option Care Health Inc., which valued Amedisys stock at $97.38 per share. The Option Care offer involved debt and stock, rather than cash. The UnitedHealth deal is just the latest home health care transaction from the integrated insurance and care delivery giant: Optum closed its $5.4 billion acquisition of home care provider LHC Group in February this year.

Humana Inc. opened its 250^th senior primary care center on June 6, following several years of its own provider-acquisition spending spree. Humana plans to open “30-50 new centers per year through 2025,” per a press release, and operates primary care centers in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Humana closed a deal to fold the former Kindred at Home into its CenterWell provider brand in 2021.