Dive Brief:
- UnitedHealth Group unit Optum has agreed to buy the health management business of Waltham, MA-based Alere Inc. for $600 million in cash.
- Alere Health's health management business offers disease management and women's and children's health services to hundreds of health plans.
- Alere leaders said they plan to turn their focus back to their other key strategic focus, making medical devices and diagnostic tools. Optum, meanwhile, said that the Alere acquisition, which includes tobacco cessation programs and home-based obstetrical services, was a "strong fit."
Dive Insight:
The deal offers at least two obvious advantages to UnitedHealth Group. For one thing, it deepens the suite of wellness services that the health insurer can offer employers, which are increasingly asking for them. The deal also helps UnitedHealth Group bulk up its population health capabilities, which are increasingly important in a world where care is focused on results achieved managing larger groups as a whole.
That being said, it's not clear whether employers will get what they're paying for if they rely on Alere's wellness services to meaningfully improve the health of their employees. While results have been mixed, it appears that at minimum, wellness programs take a few years to have a serious impact.
But doubts about the impact of wellness programs don't seem widespread. Despite the questions that linger over the effectiveness of such programs among researchers, it's clear is that employers want them. That alone will probably end up justifying the cash that UnitedHealth Group spent on its new acquisition.