---
type: source
title: "Payer-Provider Vertical Integration: Trends, Tradeoffs, and Policy Options"
author: "Brookings Institution Center on Health Policy"
url: https://www.brookings.edu/events/payer-provider-vertical-integration-trends-tradeoffs-and-policy-options/
date: 2025-05-19
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: report
status: processed
priority: high
tags: [vertical-integration, payvidor, unitedhealth, optum, medicare-advantage, market-power, anti-payvidor]
processed_by: vida
processed_date: 2025-05-19
claims_extracted: ["vertical-integration-in-medicare-advantage-raises-costs-through-aggressive-coding-and-related-party-spending-not-efficiency-gains.md", "unitedhealth-pays-optum-providers-17-percent-more-than-non-optum-providers-rising-to-61-percent-in-concentrated-markets-indicating-self-dealing-not-efficiency.md"]
enrichments_applied: ["anti-payvidor legislation targets all insurer-provider integration without distinguishing acquisition-based arbitrage from purpose-built care delivery.md", "CMS 2027 chart review exclusion targets vertical integration profit arbitrage by removing upcoded diagnoses from MA risk scoring.md", "four competing payer-provider models are converging toward value-based care with vertical integration dominant today but aligned partnership potentially more durable.md", "Devoted is the fastest-growing MA plan at 121 percent growth because purpose-built technology outperforms acquisition-based vertical integration during CMS tightening.md", "Kaiser Permanentes 80-year tripartite structure is the strongest precedent for purpose-built payvidor exemptions because any structural separation bill that captures Kaiser faces 12.5 million members and Californias entire healthcare infrastructure.md"]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
extraction_notes: "Extracted two high-value claims with strong empirical grounding: (1) vertical integration raises MA costs through coding/spending, (2) UHC-Optum 17%/61% self-dealing premium. Applied five enrichments to existing anti-payvidor, CMS policy, and payer-provider model claims. The 61% payment premium in concentrated markets is the most concrete evidence of vertical integration enabling market power extraction rather than efficiency gains. This source provides the empirical foundation for the entire anti-payvidor policy debate."
---

## Content

### Vertical Integration Landscape

- UnitedHealth/Optum employs ~10,000 physicians (~1% of US workforce), another 80,000 affiliated
- Between 2016-2019, 77% of MA plans had parent companies owning related businesses (86% of beneficiaries)
- CVS Health acquired Aetna for $69B (2018), integrating insurance + retail pharmacy + PBM
- Humana operates CenterWell primary care platform
- Medicare Advantage penetration strongly associated with payer market share in primary care

### Empirical Findings

**Integration raises costs:**
- Vertical integration tends toward more aggressive coding in MA, driving up government costs
- Related business spending associated with higher health expenditures (statistically significant)
- Consistent with concerns that vertical integration allows evasion of MLR regulations

**UHC-Optum payment differential:**
- UnitedHealthcare pays Optum providers **17% more** than non-Optum providers
- In markets where UHC has 25%+ market share, the differential spikes to **61%**
- This suggests self-dealing, not efficiency gains

### Proponent vs. Skeptic Arguments

**Proponents:** Streamlined care coordination, faster VBC adoption, lower-cost sites of service
**Skeptics:** Limited rival network access, facilitates upcoding, erodes clinical independence

### Anti-Payvidor Legislation Context

- Structural separation bills proposed in Congress
- Target all insurer-provider integration without distinguishing acquisition-based arbitrage from purpose-built care delivery
- This threatens both gaming incumbents AND genuinely integrated models (Kaiser, Devoted)

## Agent Notes
**Why this matters:** This is the empirical grounding for the vertical integration debate. The UHC-Optum 17%/61% payment differential is the most concrete evidence of self-dealing. The MLR evasion finding suggests vertical integration is used to move costs between related entities, making actual medical loss ratios opaque.
**What surprised me:** The 61% payment premium to Optum in concentrated markets. This is not marginal — it's a fundamental pricing distortion that vertical integration enables. It suggests the "efficiency gains" narrative is cover for market power extraction.
**KB connections:** [[anti-payvidor legislation targets all insurer-provider integration without distinguishing acquisition-based arbitrage from purpose-built care delivery]], [[Kaiser Permanentes 80-year tripartite structure is the strongest precedent for purpose-built payvidor exemptions]]
**Extraction hints:** Claims about: (1) empirical evidence that MA vertical integration raises costs rather than improving efficiency, (2) the UHC-Optum self-dealing premium as market power indicator, (3) MLR evasion through related-party transactions

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[anti-payvidor legislation targets all insurer-provider integration without distinguishing acquisition-based arbitrage from purpose-built care delivery]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Strongest empirical evidence connecting vertical integration to cost inflation — grounds the anti-payvidor policy debate in data.
EXTRACTION HINT: The 17%/61% self-dealing premium is the most extractable finding. It's specific, measurable, and directly challenges the integration-efficiency narrative.


## Key Facts
- UnitedHealth/Optum employs ~10,000 physicians (~1% of US workforce), another 80,000 affiliated
- Between 2016-2019, 77% of MA plans had parent companies owning related businesses (86% of beneficiaries)
- CVS Health acquired Aetna for $69B (2018)
- Humana operates CenterWell primary care platform
