Becker's ASC Review

32 TRANSACTIONS Optum's $8B+ year of deals: 6 acquisitions to know By Patsy Newitt O ptum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group and parent company of ASC chain SCA Health, made six huge deals last year totaling more than $8 billion, focusing on physician groups and value-based care. e six deals: 1. In March, Optum acquired home healthcare business LHC Group for $5.4 billion. Lafayette, La.-based LHC Group offers in-home health and hospice care from 964 locations in 37 states. rough the terms of the deal, Optum will pay $170 in cash for each share of LHC's stock. 2. Optum reportedly purchased Jacksonville Beach, Fla.-based Refresh Mental Health from private equity firm Kelso & Co. Refresh Mental Health has a network of more than 300 outpatient sites in 37 states with more than 1,500 employees. While financial terms of the Optum deal have not been disclosed, Kelso & Co. bought Refresh Mental Health in December 2020 for about $700 million. 3. In March 2021, Optum agreed to acquire Newton, Mass.-based Atrius Health, which employs 645 physicians and primary care providers, for $236 million. Although the acquisition came under scrutiny by the Massachusetts attorney general, the deal was confirmed in 2022. 4. In April, Optum acquired Houston-based Kelsey-Seybold for around $2 billion. Kelsey-Seybold is a multispecialty physician group with cancer and women's health centers, two ASCs and a sleep center. 5. In June, Optum Ventures, CVS Ventures, Anthem and HLM Venture Partners announced they are investing in CareBridge, a value-based healthcare company for patients receiving home and community-based services. 6. In July, Optum acquired Healthcare Associates of Texas, a Dallas-based physician practice management company, for $300 million. Healthcare Associates of Texas offers family medicine, physical therapy, sleep medicine, a wellness clinic, pharmacy, and lab and imaging services. n Hackensack Meridian to open $714.2M 'smart' surgery center By Paige Haeffele N ew Jersey health system Hackensack Meridian is opening a surgery tower on its University Medical Center campus. The 530,000-square-foot, nine-story Helena Theurer Pavilion will house 24 operating rooms, 72 post-anesthesia care unit beds, 50 intensive care beds, a musculoskeletal institute and intermediate care services, according to the health system's website. "This is truly a smart hospital in every sense of the word for its technological capabilities," Bob Garrett, Hackensack Meridian CEO, told ROI-NJ in November. "And it's the first hospital in the nation that has been built during the COVID era, taking the learnings of COVID and putting them into the design of this beautiful facility." The hospital cost $714.2 million, largely due to its large operating rooms, private patient rooms, technology and the ability to sanitize by converting to negative pressure rooms, according to ROI-NJ. Hackensack Meridian intends to open the center by the end of 2022. n $25M surgery center with orthopedic care opens in Florida By Claire Wallace G ainesville, Fla.-based UF Health and Jacksonville- based Jax Spine and Pain Centers have opened a $25 million multispeciality surgery center in Jacksonville, according to a Nov. 18 report from WJCT News. The 19,000-square-foot Centurion Surgery Center will offer spine, orthopedic, gastrointestinal, oral and gynecological care and pain management. Physicians from Jax Spine and Pain and UF Health will collaborate on services for spine patients. "We wanted a place that catered to interventional spine procedures and would allow us to have an environment where we could give great care in an outpatient care facility, specialized and created specifically for pain management," Christopher Roberts, founder of Jax Spine and Pain Centers, told WJCT. n

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