Patrick Conway

Chief Executive Officer, Optum UnitedHealth Group

Last Reviewed: October 1, 2026

Executive Summary

Dr. Patrick Conway runs Optum, UnitedHealth Group’s health services business, which spans pharmacy care, health management, care delivery and analytics. He has led it since May 2025. He is a physician-executive with an unusual mix of experience: a practising pediatric hospitalist, a former senior federal health official who led Medicare’s payment-innovation agenda, and the former chief executive of a Blue Cross plan. At CMS from 2011 to 2017 he directed the agency’s Innovation Center, was its chief medical officer and served as acting administrator, helping build the accountable care and bundled payment programmes that moved Medicare towards value-based care.

Career Highlights

• Chief Executive Officer of Optum since May 2025.
• Chief Executive Officer of Optum Rx, and earlier of Optum Health Care Solutions, after joining UnitedHealth in February 2020.
• President and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina from 2017 to 2019.
• Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality and Chief Medical Officer at CMS from 2011 to 2017, directing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and serving as Acting Administrator.
• White House Fellow in 2007-2008.
• Elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2014; director of PACS Group since March 2026.

Professional Journey

Conway earned a bachelor’s degree at Texas A&M University, an M.D. with High Honors at Baylor College of Medicine and an M.Sc. in clinical epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency at Boston Children’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School.

Early in his career he was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar and, in 2007-2008, a White House Fellow assigned to the Office of the Secretary at HHS and to the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He served as Executive Director of the Federal Coordinating Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research and, at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, as Director of Hospital Medicine and an associate professor.

From 2011 to 2017 he was Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality at CMS, Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and Chief Medical Officer, and also served as Principal Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator. PACS Group credits him with leading the shift of Medicare payments into alternative payment models, which grew from virtually zero to more than 30 percent of Medicare payments, and with helping create accountable care organisations and bundled payments. From 2017 to 2019 he was President and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina.

He joined UnitedHealth Group in February 2020 as CEO of Optum Health Care Solutions, later became CEO of Optum Rx, and in May 2025 was named CEO of Optum. In March 2026 he joined the board of PACS Group, a post-acute care company. He remains a practising pediatric hospitalist.

Education

Texas A&M University

Bachelor’s degree

Baylor College of Medicine

M.D., with High Honors

University of Pennsylvania

M.Sc., Clinical Epidemiology