Ingenix Continued

I've reported on this blog that Ingenix bought Executive Health Resources not too long after picking up Picis. Well, they've done it again: Ingenix announced yet another acquisition at close of business today: Axolotl, an HIE Services provider. Ingenix was rumored to be entering the HIE space and HISTalk reaffirmed it this morning. This acquisition confirms it.

With a string of recent acquisitions, UnitedHealthcare is inching closer to its vision of becoming a Kaiser-like end-to-end provider with a focus on outcomes. This also appears to be a pragmatic shift away from some of the more fancy predictive modeling approaches that hold promise but do not deliver near-term results.

Ingenix buys Executive Health Resources

Ingenix is continuing its buying spree. Just after acquiring Picis two weeks ago, Ingenix is now adding medical necessity compliance and physician medical management solutions for hospitals by purchasing Executive Health Resources. In a blog post this morning, John D Halamka suggested that Ingenix may also be looking at entering the HIE space. If that's true, expect additional M&A activity on that front.

Is there a theme here? Some commentators have suggested that Ingenix is putting together the elements of a Kaiser-like solution. For example, Dana Blankhorne at ZDNet writes this about United Healthcare, Ingenix's parent:

It’s trying to be more like Kaiser. That is it wants to control the hospitals and clinics it pays money to and see that they’re managed efficiently. Kaiser does this directly. It owns hospitals and clinics. UnitedHealth plans to do this indirectly, through Ingenix.

Kaiser Permanente has an good track record of outcomes vs. dollar spent. One would expect it to have an overwhelming share of the market. Yet, it has garnered just a 24% share in California while failing to gain traction in other states (e.g. 5% in Georgia). Commentators believe this is because Kaiser limits patients freedom in choosing how they receive care. 

The success of the next Kasier-like solution will be affected by how much choice it enables. I wonder what UnitedHealthcare thinks about patient choice?