UnitedHealth Group shrinks urgent care business

UnitedHealth Group has quietly but significantly scaled back its MedExpress urgent care business, with all locations now closed in Minnesota and just 19 operating across the country — down from more than 150 locations in 2022.

The move was not formally announced as word spread in October of divestitures in Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Executives alluded to the pullback during a call with investors last week after a stock analyst asked about a decline in the “consumers served” metric for the company’s Optum Health division, which operates outpatient clinics.

Over the past 15 years, UnitedHealth Group has steadily grown Optum Health into one of the nation’s biggest providers of physician services, with primary and specialty care clinics located across the country, as well as surgery centers, some of which are run in partnership with local health systems.

Urgent care had been part of the push since 2015, when UnitedHealth Group paid an undisclosed sum to acquire MedExpress and followed up with big expansion plans, including ambitions for up to 19 centers in Minnesota. The local business never got that big and was down to five urgent care centers in September 2022.

“Within Optum Health, alongside strengthening our core business, we recognize some parts of that business aren’t necessarily as important in the future as they were in the past,” Andrew Witty, the UnitedHealth Group chief executive, said during the call with investors to discuss fourth-quarter results. “We’re not going to shy away from making the choices to ensure that we have real clarity and focus on what we know supports our business and most importantly gives us the highest chance of giving the best possible service to patients and members.”

Eden Prairie-based UnitedHealth Group runs UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, while its fast-growing health services business, Optum, manages pharmacy benefits and provides data and IT consulting.

Within Optum, the Optum Health subsidiary is best known for providing health care services directly to patients in brick-and-mortar facilities. But the division includes a variety of other businesses ranging from in-home and virtual care to Optum Bank, where millions of patients with health savings accounts manage their money.

At the end of December, Optum Health was providing health care and social and financial services to about 100 million consumers, down from about 104 million people at the end of September.

The decline stemmed in part from a diminished emphasis on freestanding urgent care centers, particularly in locations where Optum runs primary and specialty care clinics, John Rex, the chief financial officer at UnitedHealth Group, said during the investor call.

“We’re approaching that a bit differently now,” Rex said. “There was a time when stand-alone urgent care was an important element here. As you start developing more geographic density, however, in a market place you can probably better serve those patients by just having one of your clinics having an after-hours presence and focus on that.”

The comments don’t apply to Minnesota, where Optum Health has a presence in mental health care but does not operate larger medical clinics as in states like California, Florida, Massachusetts, Texas and Washington.

MedExpress in 2019 was operating more than 260 urgent care centers across 20 states. Currently, a website for the business shows 19 urgent cares across Arkansas, Maryland, Massachusetts and Texas.

“As of the end of 2024, we no longer operate MedExpress locations in Minnesota,” UnitedHealth Group wrote in a statement. “The [MedExpress] website is probably the most accurate for the latest info on their locations.”

In November 2023, UnitedHealth Group told investors that Optum Health’s tally for employed or affiliated physicians had grown to about 90,000 doctors. In May, the figure was referenced during a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing where lawmakers challenged Witty on whether the company had become too big.

Witty said most physicians in the division have elected to partner their businesses with Optum through affiliation agreements, but are not employees.

Last year, Optum Health posted operating earnings of about $7.8 billion on $105.4 billion in revenue. Some of the division’s revenue and expenses are eliminated from the parent company’s overall financial results because Optum Health does business with UnitedHealthcare.

In 2025, Optum Health expects operating earnings of $9.5 billion to $9.7 billion on revenue of $116 billion to $117 billion.