100 Most Influential People in Healthcare - 2024

Witty oversees the nation’s largest health insurance and delivery company by market capitalization, insurance enrollment and number of employed physicians: UnitedHealth Group.

Witty has run the Minnetonka, Minnesota-based conglomerate during a tumultuous year navigating the fallout from a cyberattack that has had significant implications for the broader industry — making him Modern Healthcare’s selection to lead this year’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare.

The February cyberattack on UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare technology subsidiary exposed the reliance that hospitals, health systems, nursing homes, pharmacies, insurers and others had on the company’s platforms to perform everyday functions. The company’s Optum health services unit has also charted growth this year through acquisitions of medical practices and counted about 90,000 employed or affiliated physicians last year. The unit additionally houses OptumRx, one of the three largest pharmacy benefit managers by market share in a segment that has faced regulatory scrutiny over its influence on drug prices.

Through this year’s third quarter, UnitedHealth’s total revenue reached nearly $299.5 billion, up 8% from the same period last year. Its health insurance subsidiary UnitedHealthcare provides commercial, Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplement and Medicaid coverage to more than 50 million people. Witty has spoken this year about Medicare rate cut challenges, heightened medical utilization and the mismatch between state payment rates and the health of remaining Medicaid members post-redeterminations.

Witty, the highest-paid CEO among the major health insurers last year, took the helm at UnitedHealth in 2021 after serving in various leadership roles at the company and Optum. From April to December 2020, he took unpaid leave from UnitedHealth to serve as a special envoy for the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 efforts. Before joining UnitedHealth, he was CEO and director of pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline from 2008 to 2017.