[3] Created as an alternative against capital-based health plans, the cooperative was founded in 1967 in the city of Santos,[4] state of São Paulo, by Dr. Luiz Camargo Barbosa and 22 more doctors.

This means doctors hold a dual role: they are both members of the cooperative and providers of healthcare services.

The compensation of member physicians is directly tied to their production, which is typically determined by the quantity and type of procedures they perform.

With the purpose to guarantee the freedom and dignity of healthy professionals and structure improvements needed by the sector at finish of 1960 decade, a doctors group affiliated to Santos Doctors Sindicate (Sindicato dos Médicos de Santos), in Sao Paulo State, sought in cooperativism an alternative model of Management based on ethics, without aim of profit and with an emphasis on the social role of medicine.

To organize institutionally all the federations and Single companies, which began to be created at the beginning of the decade, the Unimed of Brazil was founded on November 28, 1975, during a meeting of members.