UnitedHealth drops motion to dismiss DOJ’s antitrust case in $3.3B Amedisys deal

UnitedHealth Group has withdrawn its motion to dismiss the Justice Department’s ongoing antitrust challenge to a proposed acquisition, saying a government filing in late January provided information that rendered the company’s previous motion moot.

The Eden Prairie-based health care giant argued last month the Justice Department’s original complaint did not specify the exact geographic boundaries of the markets at issue when it alleged in November that UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition of home care and hospice provider Amedisys would be presumptively anticompetitive.

The Justice Department’s response to the motion, filed Jan. 29, “finally identified” the exact location of these regional markets, UnitedHealth Group said in a filing this week.

The Justice Department, in its filing last month, argued it already had provided the companies with the detailed geographic information but also filed with the court a list of 381 service areas where the government alleges presumptively anticompetitive impacts from the acquisition. None of the service areas are in Minnesota.

“This motion is defendants’ latest attempt to obtain improper, premature discovery into details of the geographic markets alleged by plaintiffs,” the Justice Department said in its filing. “Although professing ‘not [to] file this motion lightly,’ UnitedHealth and Amedisys fail to mention that plaintiffs provided defendants with detailed information about the relevant geographic markets before filing suit. Plaintiffs then twice offered to supplement that information to obviate this motion to dismiss.”

On Thursday, Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court of Maryland ordered the motion to dismiss withdrawn and said UnitedHealth Group has indicated it will now answer the government’s complaint, at which point the court will set a scheduling conference.

UnitedHealth said its Optum health services division and Amedisys operate in 37 and 40 states, respectively, but together account for just 12% of home health visits and 5% of hospice visits nationwide.

The Justice Department, along with attorneys general in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, argued the merger would harm patients and labor markets by significantly reducing competition, since the companies are two of the largest home health and hospice providers in the U.S.

The November complaint from the Justice Department marked the second time in less than three years the government has tried stopping UnitedHealth Group from completing a merger in its fast-growing Optum division for health care services. Optum is distinct from UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer and the company’s longstanding benefits business.

The government lost its bid in 2022 to block Optum’s purchase of Change Healthcare, a Tennessee-based company that processed health care data.