UnitedHealth Group Incorporated
Managed Healthcare & Health ServicesFounded 1977- Updated June 2026
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2026
CorpDigest
UnitedHealth Group Incorporated
Company History
Founded 1977 in Minnetonka, Minnesota
Last reviewed: 2026-06-03 · By Swet Parvadiya
UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is a Managed Healthcare & Health Services company with $400.3B in 2024 revenue and 440K employees worldwide. UnitedHealth Group Incorporated is the largest managed healthcare and health services enterprise in the United States, bringing together two distinct but deeply integrated business platforms under a single corporate structure. The UnitedHealthcare platform provides medical benefits coverage to approximately 50 million Americans across employer-sponsored commercial plans, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement programs for seniors, Medicaid managed care contracts for low-income populations across more than 30 states, and insurance products in select international markets. The Optum platform delivers health services through three operating businesses: OptumRx, a top-three pharmacy benefit manager serving over 65 million members; Optum Health, a care delivery organization employing more than 60,000 clinicians across primary care, multi-specialty, home health, and ambulatory surgical settings; and Optum Insight, a health information technology and analytics company serving hospitals, health plans, government agencies, and life sciences clients with revenue cycle management, data analytics, and clinical decision support tools. The company is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, where it has been based since its founding in 1977, and its approximately 440,000 employees operate in facilities spanning every state in the nation and multiple international markets. UnitedHealth Group has been a component of the S&P 500 for decades and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol UNH. For fiscal year 2024, the company reported total revenues of $400.3 billion, making it the second-largest corporation in the United States by revenue. The dual-platform model — UnitedHealthcare providing insurance scale and member relationships, Optum providing higher-margin services to both internal and external clients — has driven revenue growth from under $100 billion in 2010 to over $400 billion in 2024, a compounding trajectory with few parallels in American corporate history. The company currently operates under the leadership of Stephen Hemsley, who returned as CEO in May 2025 following Andrew Witty's resignation, and faces a regulatory and reputational environment considerably more challenging than at any prior point in the enterprise's history.
Richard T. Burke is the founding CEO of United HealthCare Corporation, the predecessor entity to UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, which he organized in Minnetonka, Minnesota in 1977. After working in healthcare administration and insurance in the early 1970s through Charter Med Incorporated — a Minneapolis organization dedicated to managing health maintenance organizations for employers and labor unions in the Upper Midwest — Burke reorganized the entity into United HealthCare Corporation, building on the regulatory framework created by the federal HMO Act of 1973 to construct a network of managed care administrative services across multiple states. Under his founding leadership, United HealthCare expanded from a regional HMO contract management company into a multi-state managed care operator, ultimately guiding the company to its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 1984. Burke served as CEO from the company's founding in 1977 until his retirement from the role in 1988, having built the organizational, operational, and financial foundation upon which eleven years of subsequent leadership — culminating in the dual-platform enterprise generating over $400 billion in annual revenue — would be constructed. His successors, particularly Stephen Hemsley during his first tenure from 2006 to 2017, accelerated the company's transformation into the vertically integrated platform that Burke's original managed care thesis foreshadowed.
Richard T. Burke organizes United HealthCare Corporation in Minnetonka, Minnesota, initially providing contract management services for health maintenance organizations operated by employers and labor unions across the Upper Midwest, capitalizing on the federal HMO Act of 1973 to build an administrative infrastructure for the emerging managed care industry.
United HealthCare Corporation completes its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming one of the first managed care companies to access public equity capital markets and establishing the financial foundation for national expansion through acquisition and organic growth.
United HealthCare acquires MetraHealth — the joint health insurance venture formed by MetLife and Travelers Group — for approximately $1.65 billion, roughly doubling the company's membership base overnight and transforming a Midwest-centered managed care operator into a coast-to-coast national insurer capable of competing for the largest US employer accounts.
The company rebrands as UnitedHealth Group Incorporated under CEO William McGuire, signaling a strategic expansion beyond traditional insurance to encompass health services, data analytics, and technology platforms — an architectural commitment that will ultimately reshape the company into a $400 billion diversified health enterprise.
UnitedHealth Group consolidates its health services, data analytics, and pharmacy operations into an integrated services platform that will be formally branded as Optum, creating the structural foundation for a second major business segment that will eventually generate revenue larger than the insurance segment's external premium income.
UnitedHealth Group acquires Amerigroup Corporation for approximately $4.9 billion, significantly expanding the company's managed Medicaid capabilities and state contract portfolio, positioning UnitedHealthcare Community and State as a dominant force in government-sponsored managed care for low-income populations.
Optum acquires DaVita Medical Group — a network of approximately 300 medical clinics and 35 urgent care centers across six states — for $4.9 billion, establishing Optum Health as a major direct-care delivery organization with tens of thousands of employed physicians and the infrastructure for value-based primary care at national scale.
Andrew Witty, former CEO of GlaxoSmithKline and one of the most experienced international pharmaceutical executives in the world, assumes the role of CEO of UnitedHealth Group, bringing a focus on digital transformation, international expansion, and deepening Optum's value-based care capabilities to the company's executive leadership.
After defeating a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit challenging the deal in federal court, UnitedHealth Group completes its $13 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare, the largest healthcare claims clearinghouse in the United States, creating Optum Insight as a dominant force in healthcare information technology, claims processing, and revenue cycle management.
The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group attacks Change Healthcare's IT systems on February 21, 2024, disrupting claims processing for approximately one-third of all US medical transactions for weeks; direct costs to UnitedHealth Group ultimately exceed $3.1 billion, making it the most financially damaging cyberattack in healthcare history and triggering congressional investigations and HHS regulatory scrutiny.
Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, is fatally shot outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel on December 4, 2024, before an investor conference; the incident triggers intense national debate about health insurance claim denial practices and inflicts significant and sustained reputational damage on the company and the broader managed care industry.
Andrew Witty resigns as CEO citing personal health reasons in May 2025; the board appoints Stephen Hemsley — who previously served as CEO from 2006 to 2017 and is widely credited as the architect of the modern Optum platform — to return and lead the company through its most challenging regulatory, legal, and reputational period.
Acquired the healthcare technology company to gain its claims processing network (handling 15 billion transactions annually), payment systems, and clinical data analytics — creating the largest healthcare data and technology platform in the U.S.
Acquired DaVita's physician practice management business (renamed Optum Care) to rapidly scale Optum Health's care delivery network, adding approximately 15,000 physicians across multiple states.
Acquired the pharmacy benefits manager to scale Optum Rx into one of the three largest PBMs in America (alongside CVS Caremark and Express Scripts/Cigna).
Acquired the ambulatory surgery center operator to expand Optum Health's outpatient surgical capabilities, shifting procedures from expensive hospital settings to lower-cost ambulatory centers.