AHA Urges DOJ to Investigate UnitedHealth Group’s Acquisition of Change Healthcare

In a letter to the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, the American Hospital Association expresses concern with UnitedHealth Group’s proposed acquisition of Change Healthcare.

We respectfully request that DOJ conduct a thorough investigation of the proposed transaction because it threatens to reduce competition for the sale of health care information technology services to hospitals and other health care providers, which could negatively impact consumers and health care providers. Indeed, the Parties are well aware that the transaction presents substantial antitrust concerns because the transaction agreement provides that the Parties will divest assets that generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in order to obtain DOJ approval.

The proposed acquisition also would produce a massive consolidation of competitively sensitive health care data and shift such data from Change Healthcare, a neutral third-party, to Optum, a subsidiary of UHG. Because Optum’s parent, UHG, also owns the largest health insurance company – UnitedHealthcare – in the United States, the combination of the Parties’ data sets would impact (and likely distort) decisions about patient care and claims processing and denials to the detriment of consumers and health care providers, and further increase UHG’s already massive market power.

Read more in our letter below.