Amar A. Desai, MD, former president of El Segundo, Calif.-based HealthCare Partners, is the new president and CEO of UnitedHealth's Optum in California.
Four things to know:
1. Dr. Desai will be responsible for Optum care delivery organizations and physician networks in California, including HealthCare Partners, Monarch HealthCare, North American Medical Management California and AppleCare.
2. Most recently, he was president of HealthCare Partners, a medical group and integrated delivery network that serves 700,000 patients in Southern California.
3. He also was CEO of USC Care Medical Group, a medical faculty practice of Los Angeles-based Keck Medicine of USC, and a senior executive at Denver-based dialysis provider DaVita.
4. Dr. Desai, a practicing nephrologist, has bachelor's and medical degrees from Providence, R.I.-based Brown University, and a master's degree in public health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.