Overview

• UnitedHealth finalized its $3.3 billion purchase of Amedisys on August 15, ending a two-year antitrust review and prompting Amedisys’s delisting from Nasdaq.
• An August 7 consent decree compels UnitedHealth to divest 164 home health and hospice centers across 19 states under federal court supervision, with BrightSpring Health Services and The Pennant Group slated as buyers.
• Amedisys has started folding into UnitedHealth’s Optum division, expanding the insurer’s vertically integrated home-care network following its 2023 LHC Group acquisition.
• A group of Democratic lawmakers criticized the settlement as insufficient to protect competition, warning it could drive up costs and limit patient access to services.
• The deal closure comes as UnitedHealth faces separate DOJ criminal and civil investigations and an FTC lawsuit alleging anticompetitive practices in drug pricing.