Optum has completed its $7.8 billion merger with Change Healthcare.
Optum's parent company, UnitedHealth Group, completed the acquisition Oct. 3, which merges Optum with healthcare data and analytics giant Change Healthcare, according to an Oct. 3 press release. The acquisition allows Optum to gain access to data from millions of healthcare transactions covering a broad swath of the U.S. population.
The aim of the merger is to connect and simplify the clinical, administrative and payment processes for healthcare providers and payers.
The completed merger comes after a Washington, D.C., federal judge cleared the path for UnitedHealth Group to move forward with the acquisition of Change Healthcare.
The deal, which was highly scrutinized by the federal government, was previously called anticompetitive because Change Healthcare has access to data from insurer customers.
UnitedHealth Group argued Optum is separate from its insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, and the deal should go through because there are policies in place to protect sensitive data.
Change Healthcare has connections with thousands of healthcare providers to transact client records for more than 85 million patients, which is around 25 percent of the total U.S. population.
The company also reported $920 million in total revenue for the 2022 fiscal year.