Humana to Acquire Concentra for $790 Million

Monday, November 29, 2010 | 0

By Joe Paduda
CompPharma and Health Strategy Associates

In an announcement a few minutes ago, health plan company Humana announced it intends to buy occ-med clinic firm Concentra for $790 million.

Currently Concentra has about 300 facilities and 240 on-site clinics and revenues of $800 million.

The deal does two things for Humana.

First, it diversifies the health plan's revenue sources; Concentra handles over 10% of all work comp primary care, a very different business form Humana's group/medicare business.

More importantly, Concentra's 300-plus clinics are located near many of Humana's current and hopefully future members. This solves a very big problem for Humana and every other health plan the dearth of primary care.

Concentra also has very strong relationships with local employers, relationships that Humana is certain to leverage as it rolls out its new offerings in the near future.

Concentra's facilities will be able to provide Humana with a significant advantage in many markets tight control over primary care costs, integrated electronic medical records, access to wellness and health promotion activities and resources (currently a top priority for Concentra).

This is a smart move for both organizations, and will likely get other big health plans thinking harder about creative ways to address primary care access.

<i>Joe Paduda is co-owner of CompPharma, a consortium of pharmacy benefit managers, and owner of Health Strategy Associates, a Connecticut employer consulting firm. This column was reprinted with his permission from his blog, http://www.managedcarematters.com</i>