You read the title correctly as United adds yet one more subsidiary to their almost 400 subsidiary companies.  This is indeed marketing that will get more insureed inside one of their networks and of course they are competing with the other insurers as well.  The catch here is for the insured to visit one of the Harken facilities to experience no co-pays and I’m guessing these could be doctors on salary as so many across the nation are now averaging payments about 12% less than what Medicare pays.  This is in a test market area for righ now in Illinois and Georgia.image

Doctors In Network LeaveUnited Healthcare–Tired of Getting Paid At Rates 12% Less Than Medicare…

One might ask too, will there be United Healthcare coupons handed out as yet another way to get even more behavioral data about you as well. 

United Healthcare Finds Yet Another Way to Track You At the Grocery Store–Healthy Savings Card That Will Give You Discounts and Track What You Buy..
Health Insurance Companies Providing Charge Cards And/Or Coupons For Healthy Foods–More Data To Collect About You And Potentially Repackage and Sell For A Profit…

You can maybe guess that the revenue cycling for these offices could be handled by yet another United Subsidiary company, Optum 360.  That is an outsource company that goes into practices and hospitals, fires the existing folks and usually hired them back for less or lesser benefits, etc. 

Mayo Clinic is the Latest to Outsource Revenue Cycling to Optum 360, A UnitedHealthcare/Dignity Health Company Pursuing Hospital Contracts All Over the US For Profit…

It’s also worth the speculation of looking at another United Healthcare subsidiary, the MedExpress urgent care clinics that were purchased by United last year which I beleive there’s just under 200 of them now that blanket pretty well in a few states like West Virginai, Pennsylvania, so see if there’s thought of merging Harkin in with these subsidiaries. 

Optum (United Healthcare) Buys MedExpress Urgent Care Business- 141 Full Service Clinics In 11 States–Company Advertises They Are In the Market to Buy Your MD Practice, As A “Too Big To Fail Insurer” Moves Forward With More Acquisitions
OPTUM Clinics Holdings, New Subsidiary Incorporated In 2015 Raises Over 36 Million (Exchange of Shares) From Investors Unknown-Form D Used to Maintain Secrecy Of Who They Are For Now…

In addition the push to get even more consumer behavior data is also active with this model in Arizona to where the center revovles around a clinic and provides all kind of services, even to getting into the patient’s financial affairs with managing their money.  Again as I keep saying, United is a too big to fail insurer and it into all different types of businesses most are not aware of. 

And So It Starts With Funded Health Insurance Communities to Help the Poor and Obtain A Lot More Behavior Data to Mine and Sell ForUnited Healthcare From the Participants…

Here’s the bank services of the Optum Bank, ready to give out an HSA account and of course a MasterCard to empty it out as needed and at the same time be able to collect more behavioral data about you too. 

United Healthcare Owns a Bank-Optum Bank That Will Collect Your HSA Money, Give You a MasterCard to Empty It Out-Which Enables Even More Data Mining and Selling Transactions About You

United/Optum has grown by acquiring other companies.  In addition if you can’t afford care, there’s another option at Optum (which you have to pay for) with a “discount card” called Health Allies.  This company was founded by current CMS head, Andy Slavitt and the daughter of Senator Elizabeth Warren, Amelia Warren Tyagi in California when both of them got together at a “beach house” as it was quoted in an interview in California from knowing each other at the McKinsey Group.  We all know what “The Firm” (McKinsey) group is today, the “CEO school” basically as written about in the book called “The Firm: The Story of McKinsey and Its Secret Influence on American Business”.  

Being that Warren’s daughter now runs a company that is stated to compete with McKinsey, one could speculate if the agency had anything to do with the fact that a former United Healthcare Executive ended up running the NHS i the UK as well.  You can ponder that one if you like.  The company finds McKinsey-like people to run companies.  You can go here for the visual history on Health Allies and take a look.  I might guess both Warren’s daughter and Current CMS Head Andy Slavitt made a big haul here with United buying Health Allies and I think allowed Mr. Slavitt to go further and create the Ingenix subsidiary of United Healthcare, which has a huge history of not being honest with their math models and algorithms. 

With all the mergers and acquisitions today, I feel it’s important for consumers to be aware of who’s bottom line you are feeding with your healthcare today as United/Optum is pretty much just “hiding in plain site”  with all their subsidiaries and taking advantage of the fact that people don’t bother to look and read.  Here’s another example of the new Optum Clinical Labs subsidiary and we don’t know who jumped in to add the additional $32 million in funding here either.  With United’s current CEO now sitting on the board of Cargill, corporation, well one could speculate, was it one of the hedge funds that food company operates?  The investors in the new Optum Clinical Labs subsidiary was kept in secret with the SEC filing.

The scary thing here is one health insurance company forming a monopoly at HHS and CMS today and we are seeing lack of competition here and again too much power from one US corporation.  There have been and currently are several executives of United who serve over at the CAP (Center for American Progress) who is the think tank that writes healthcare policy for HHS today.  That is scary too as you imagewill also find folks like Dr. Zeke Emanuel and Jonathon Gruber over there as well as members, writing policy.  If you have ever read much of Zeke Emanuel’s books or articles, it’s hard to ignore the fact that he’s walking commercial for Optum and United Healthcare, been that way for a few years now.

Zeke Emanuel Joins Venture Capital Group–Will He Still Be Writing US Healthcare Policy at the CAP Think Tank?

So here we go again, just one more subsidiary to gain more market share and the United Healthcare/Optum Quants have been busy modeling yet one more choice to make things even more complicated for consumers?  Why?  Because it means big profits to keep consumers jumping through constantly changing models and algorithms to get their healthcare as United is very aware of the captive audience they have unfortunately. 

Don’t be confused as these models are not here to really give you better care, they are created in the name of profit and gaining bigger market share and like I said the quants have been busy as health insurers hired armies of them, just like the financial markets.  BD

Data Scientists/Quants in the Health Insurance Business–Modeling Beyond the Speed and Capabilities of Humans To Keep Up With The Affordable Care Act–Turning Into A World of Killer Algorithms That We All Hate..


UnitedHealthcare is facing competition this year in Atlanta and Chicago from a new name in health insurance — a carrier that’s actually one of its subsidiaries. For the first time, individual shoppers are buying coverage from Harken Health, a company with about 100 employees based at an office on the UnitedHealthcare corporate campus in Minnetonka.

Harken is being run as an independent entity, executives said, with a distinct approach to selling coverage. Subscribers receive unlimited access to primary care, without copays, if they visit a health center owned by Harken Health.

Rather than charge a premium, Harken Health says it collects a “membership fee.” The company’s clinics are called “health centers.” Beyond not charging copays at the centers, there’s also no “coinsurance” — a form of cost-sharing that Vanderheyden says just adds complexity. By simplifying payment, the centers don’t have to bother with all the paperwork and hassle to get paid by insurers, Vanderheyden said.

Harken sells a “bronze” quality plan with a $6,850 deductible to a 40-year-old in Chicago for $242 per month. UnitedHealthcare offers slightly lower deductibles and monthly costs of $255 and $269.

http://www.startribune.com/unitedhealthcare-launches-a-smaller-very-very-different-insurer/371824841/

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