UnitedHealth pays Optum doctors 17% more than outside providers

Tara Bannow covers hospitals, providers and insurers. You can reach Tara on Signal at tarabannow.70.

UnitedHealth Group pays its own medical practices far more than competing practices, a new study finds, bolstering STAT’s own analysis on the subject and presenting new evidence that the conglomerate could circumvent a rule designed to curb health insurers’ profits.

UnitedHealth’s insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, pays practices under the UnitedHealth-owned Optum umbrella 17 percent more on average for common services than non-Optum practices in the same region, according to the study published today in Health Affairs. In areas where its insurance branch has a significant market share, it pays Optum firms 61% more.

The study’s lead author, Daniel Arnold, said his research was inspired in part by STAT’s report from last year, which found that UnitedHealthcare paid 13 of 16 Optum practices more than others in the same market, ranging from as little as 3% more to 111% more. UnitedHealth paid the other 3 practices less than the market average. UnitedHealth paid about twice the market average for some common services, STAT found.