UnitedHealthcare has agreements with Walmart and a growing list of retailers to make available free at-home COVID-19 tests when subscribers present their ID cards at pharmacy counters.
The benefit is available to more than 26 million people with UnitedHealthcare commercial insurance, a group that primarily consists of those covered by employer-sponsored health plans.
Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare, which is the nation's largest health insurer, has seen in recent weeks a 10% decline in primary care visits and a larger drop in patients visiting specialist physicians with the surge of infections caused by the omicron variant. Company officials say reduced expenses stemming from those missed visits might well offset the cost of providing the new testing benefit, which was mandated by the Biden administration last week.
