The Defense Health Agency awarded OptumServe Health Services Inc. a $1,610,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract on April 16, 2026, for the Remote Health Reserve Program — 4th Generation (RHRP-4), the primary vehicle for medical, dental, and behavioral health readiness assessments for Reserve Component and National Guard servicemembers who do not have regular access to military treatment facilities. OptumServe is a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group's Optum division, headquartered in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

What RHRP-4 Covers

The Reserve Component of the U.S. military — approximately 800,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen — is spread across communities far from military installations. Most have no regular access to military treatment facilities for the routine readiness screenings that active-duty personnel receive on base. RHRP exists to close that gap, deploying mobile medical units and contracted clinical networks to conduct the comprehensive health assessments — physical exams, dental evaluations, behavioral health screenings, vaccinations, laboratory work, vision and audiology testing — that keep reservists deployable.

RHRP-4 will serve approximately 400,000 beneficiaries annually, including active-duty servicemembers, reservists, National Guard members, and certain DoD and Department of Homeland Security civilians. The contract carries a guaranteed minimum obligation of $11 million and a ceiling of $1.61 billion, with an ordering structure that includes a nine-month transition period, a base ordering period of three to six months, and nine one-year option periods — up to ten years total.

OptumServe Displaces Leidos' QTC

The incumbent on RHRP-3 was QTC Medical Services, a subsidiary of Leidos Holdings that provides disability and readiness examination services to the federal government. QTC won the RHRP-3 award in 2020 and has obligated approximately $378 million under that contract. The RHRP-3 vehicle is scheduled to sunset on May 27, 2026 — meaning the transition from QTC to OptumServe is taking place over approximately six weeks.

DHA received four proposals on the RHRP-4 solicitation, indicating a competitive field that likely included QTC/Leidos, one or both of the other major federal medical examination contractors (LHI — now part of OptumServe following a 2019 merger — and MSLA), and possibly newer entrants. OptumServe's win consolidates two formerly competing federal health examination businesses: LHI and OptumServe had both independently held federal contracts before their merger.

For Leidos, the loss represents a meaningful revenue reduction in its health segment, which has been under pressure as several large government health contracts have turned over to competitors in recent recompetes. Leidos has not publicly commented on the RHRP-4 outcome and retains substantial health revenues from VA contract medical examinations and other DHA programs.

UnitedHealth Context and Scrutiny

OptumServe is a division of Optum, itself a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group — the largest health insurer in the United States by revenue. UnitedHealth has faced intense scrutiny following the February 2024 cyberattack on its Change Healthcare subsidiary, which disrupted healthcare billing across the country for weeks and exposed the systemic risk posed by consolidated health IT infrastructure.

That incident prompted questions in Congress and at DoD about the wisdom of concentrating federal health services delivery in a single large contractor's ecosystem. DHA's decision to award RHRP-4 to OptumServe — despite that backdrop — suggests the agency concluded that OptumServe's clinical network, logistics infrastructure, and pricing were superior to the alternatives, and that its cybersecurity posture had been sufficiently remediated or was structurally separate from the affected Change Healthcare systems.

Implications for Military Readiness

The RHRP program is directly linked to deployment readiness. Reserve Component units that fail readiness exams cannot deploy — a problem that has historically surfaced when reservists are called up on short notice and their medical records are incomplete or outdated. Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic mobilization, when tens of thousands of Guard and Reserve members were activated for domestic support operations, exposed gaps in the RHRP system's ability to scale rapidly.

RHRP-4 is designed with surge capacity requirements — the ability to dramatically expand throughput in a national emergency or major deployment order. OptumServe's clinical network, which spans thousands of contracted examination sites across all 50 states and U.S. territories, is a key factor in meeting those surge requirements.

What It Means for Contractors

  • Medical service providers, clinics, and occupational health firms that want to join OptumServe's RHRP-4 clinical network should monitor OptumServe's provider portal; the transition from QTC's network to OptumServe's will require new credentialing and onboarding for sites that previously worked only with QTC.
  • Health IT firms with electronic health record integration experience and FedRAMP-authorized solutions should engage with OptumServe's subcontracting team — RHRP-4's data reporting requirements flow back to DHA's Military Health System and require system-to-system integration.
  • Veterans and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses in healthcare staffing and clinical services have opportunities as subcontractors; RHRP-4 will carry small business subcontracting plan requirements.
  • The contract sunsets in 2036 at the latest — but watch for a potential mid-contract review around 2030 if readiness metrics or cybersecurity concerns prompt DHA to revisit the vehicle structure.

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