Optum walks away from its agreement to buy Steward’s doctors network

Health care provider Optum has backed away from its plan to purchase Steward Health Care’s national physicians group, dealing a major setback to Steward’s efforts to bolster its finances after filing for bankruptcy.

Optum, an arm of health insurance giant UnitedHealth, struck a preliminary deal in March to acquire Stewardship Health for an undisclosed sum. Stewardship, a Steward affiliate, includes its primary care doctors and other clinicians in Massachusetts and seven other states, as well as its contracting network for physicians.

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But the parties hadn’t finalized an asset purchase agreement, and an Optum representative placed a call to a Massachusetts official this week to say it had decided not to go forward, said a state government official who was not authorized to discuss the situation publicly and asked not to be named.

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