The future of health care is in-home, especially thanks to a pandemic that left many unable to or uncomfortable with visiting overcrowded health facilities and hospitals.

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Healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group is doubling down on this concept with its latest acquisition of LHC Group in a deal that’s estimated to close around $5.4 billion.

UnitedHealth Group hit a 52-week high on Tuesday morning, with LHC Group shares skyrocketing over 7% in premarket trading.

LHC Group will be acquired by the Optum Health division of UHG, which provides healthcare services through local medical groups (primary, specialty, urgent and surgical care centers.)

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“LHC Group’s sophisticated care coordination capabilities and its warm, human touch is so important for home care, and will greatly enhance the reach of Optum’s value-based capabilities along the full continuum of care, including primary care, home and community care, virtual care, behavioral health and ambulatory surgery,” Dr. Wyatt Decker, CEO of Optum Health said in a company statement. “We greatly admire how the people of LHC Group have created a culture that enables them to be a trusted health care partner to patients and their families when they need it the most, and we look forward to working with and learning from them.”

LHC Group is primarily an in-home-focused company, which oversees around 30,000 employees and 12 million in-home appointments. Executive staff and leadership from the company will transfer over once the acquisition is complete with UHG.

The deal, which is expected to close in later 2022, will pay for shares of LHC Group in cash at $170 per share, with LHC Group co-founders Keith and Ginger Myers investing $10 million of their personal funds into UHG stock upon the deal’s close.

“Since our founding in 1994, ‘it’s all about helping people’ has been the core of our mission, and as part of the Optum team and its value-based capabilities, we will be able to expand our patient-centered mission and help drive best care practices across the country,” Myers, who serves as LHC Group’s chairman and CEO, said. “Working together as organizations committed to caring for the most vulnerable in society will help us more effectively and efficiently deliver high quality and increasingly value-based care in the home.”

UnitedHealth Group was up around 35% year over year as of early Tuesday afternoon.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/423378