Insurance Company Consolidation

Size matters in the health insurance space.  How that will trickle down to affect dental insurance remains to be seen.  However, within the last few weeks Anthem has made an offer to buy Cigna.  Aetna has made and offer to acquire Humana, meanwhile UnitedHealthcare has approached Aetna about a potential merger.

This industry consolidation is being driven largely by intensifying pressure to reduce costs and to find ways to capture opportunity from the expanding ACA rollout.  Just as in the dental space, the larger the insurer, the more clout they have to reduce reimbursements to hospital systems and providers.