Optum, Inc. is an American healthcare company that provides technology services, pharmacy care services (including a pharmacy benefit manager) and various direct healthcare services.

Optum was formed as a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group in 2011 by merging UnitedHealth Group's existing pharmacy and care delivery services into the single Optum brand, comprising three main businesses: OptumHealth, OptumInsight and OptumRx. In 2017, Optum accounted for 44 percent of UnitedHealth Group's profits. In 2019, Optum's revenues surpassed $100 billion for the first time, growing by 11.1% year over year, making it UnitedHealth's fastest-growing unit at the time.

In early 2019, Optum gained significant media attention regarding a trade secrets lawsuit that the company filed against former executive David William Smith, after Smith left Optum to join Haven, the joint healthcare venture of Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Optum, a distinct subsidiary wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, operates as its Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Shared Services arm, supporting Optum and its sister companies with customer service operations in countries such as the Philippines.

Optum's three businesses, OptumRx, OptumHealth and OptumInsight focus on five core capabilities: data and analytics, pharmacy care services, population health, healthcare delivery and healthcare operations. Optum serves employers, government agencies, health plans, life science companies, care providers and individuals and families offering products in data and analytics, pharmacy care services, health care operations and delivery, population health management and advisory services. The Optum Serve division provides health-related services to U.S. government agencies. In January 2013 Optum, in partnership with Mayo Clinic, unveiled Optum Labs, a health data initiative. In October 2013 Optum, in partnership with Dignity Health, launched Optum 360, a revenue cycle management venture.

Since Optum's founding in 2011, the company has acquired various healthcare technology services to build out its pharmacy benefit manager and care services offerings.

This Optum-UnitedHealth model of vertical integration is pointed to as having sparked a pattern of acquisition activity in the healthcare industry; most notably, mega-mergers between CVS-Aetna, Cigna-Express Scripts and Humana-Kindred. "Optum's been the leader in showing how a managed care organization with an ambulatory care delivery platform and a pharmacy benefit manager all in house can lower or maintain and bend cost trend and then drive better market share gains in their health insurance business. I think they have been the impetus in the large space for the Aetna-CVS deal," Ana Gupte, managing director of healthcare services at Leerink, said in an interview with Healthcare Dive.

"Vertical integration" has met with considerable pushback and claims of antitrust law violations. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused major pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), including CVS Caremark and OptumRx, of engaging in anticompetitive practices that harm competition and raise drug prices, citing conflicts of interest and exclusivity provisions. Similarly, the American Medical Association (AMA) has criticized the CVS-Aetna merger, arguing it undermines competition in pharmacy benefit management services, health insurance, and retail pharmacy markets, leading to higher consumer costs and fewer choices.