M&A has certainly become the new normal in healthcare, pun intended. It seems every week a new set of vendors are merging or some large health system is acquiring clinics or smaller hospital organizations.
The impact of a major vendor, which has thousands of hospital and clinic customers, getting acquired cannot be overstated. That is certainly the case with the recent news that Optum (a division of the absolutely massive UnitedHealth Group) is acquiring Change Healthcare (an amalgamation of McKesson IT solution assets and Emdeon). To that point, we decided to do some quick research with those this event impacts the most – decision-makers and clinicians. This is their story…
Most of the healthcare industry, knew very little about this acquisition taking place even after all of the announcements, tweets, posts, articles, and the like. That nearly half of the market knows absolutely nothing about it is certainly noteworthy. Perhaps Optum is courting this relative anonymity on purpose.
"Consolidation along the spectrum of an industry will lead to limited choices and drive up costs."
39% think the acquisition will have a negative impact with only 15% thinking the outcome will be positive. This isn’t overly surprising since most customers have lived through (aka suffered) the effects of their suppliers changing owners many times. Once bitten twice shy…
“Acquisitions like this typically never improve patient accessibility or quality of care. In most cases reimbursement is driven down because of the size and scope of the insurer, thus providing an unfair advantage to the insurer.”
While most Optum customers are on the fence, nearly a third are positive about the future outcomes of this acquisition. Since Optum is the predator in this dynamic, this finding isn’t overly surprising.
“In our particular case, the loss of a local health care system, ABQ Partners, was not positive since it ended up as part of an out of state organization, Optum. However, service-wise, it has been positive.”
Almost every Change Healthcare client is on the fence just waiting to see what happens before rendering judgement.
“Compared to the Change Healthcare platform, Optum's platform is not as user friendly. Hopefully the purchase won't affect the platform or customer service.”
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