Hospitals, doctors and pharmacies are losing up to $1 billion a day after a cyberattack on one of America’s largest health insurance companies.
Last month, the cyber gang BlackCat hacked Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of United Healthcare, which processes a reported 15 billion medical and pharmaceutical claims totaling more than $1.5 trillion a year.
It primarily affected the company’s mail-order pharmacy service Optum, disrupting its computer network. With networks down, insurance payments for prescription drugs could not be processed, leaving many hospitals and doctors responsible for the bills up front with the hope that they will eventually be reimbursed.
And because pharmacies can’t process the payments, desperate Americans have been forced to shell out potentially thousands of dollars for drugs that would normally be covered by insurance and cost far less, or ration their current supply.
Seattle-area resident Olivia Coltrane said her regular prescription of generic Vyvance to treat her ADHD usually costs about $3, but she had to pay $92 for her most recently, a nearly 3,000 percent increase.
Ms Coltrane previously told DailyMail.com that she had to contact her doctor and pharmacist four times before she was able to get the medication – and even when she did, she only received a two-week supply.
Afraid she will run out and not be able to refill it, she told DailyMail.com: ‘All I can do is hope they have it in stock.’
The number of cyber attacks on healthcare providers has more than doubled since 2016 – with 91 per year by 2021 compared to 43 five years ago
About half of America’s healthcare systems rely on Change Healthcare, and experts estimate that the hack will make a big dent in the economy.
Max Reale, an analyst at investment bank Compass Point, said providers could lose between $500 million and $1 million in daily revenue.
In addition, Chip Kahn, executive director of the Federation of American Hospitals, said Axios: ‘I know some systems that bill $40 or $50 million a day. They are up to around 800 million dollars so far.’
Meanwhile in Arizona, Margaret Brown, 50, struggled for weeks to secure her son’s insulin for his type 1 diabetes.
She called for a refill in late February and was told by a pharmacist that a recent fracture had interfered with their ability to fill scripts and bill insurance.
She called for a refill in late February and was told by a pharmacist that a recent fracture had interfered with their ability to fill scripts and bill insurance.
Typically, Ms. Brown spends zero dollars for a month’s worth of insulin, but she would have had to pay $400 this time.
She told DailyMail.com that because he still had some insulin left, she waited a little while to call the pharmacy back to see if her claim had been processed.
She said: ‘I went to the pharmacy and asked them again. And they never called me or anything. I just went there and they said it was ready and it went through.
“So he didn’t go without, but if he wanted to go without, I would have had to pay the $400.”
The hack on February 21 forced Change Healthcare to shut down all of its systems to reduce the risk of an even larger attack.
But that move led to the suspension of more than 100 services.
Under normal circumstances, hospitals and doctors file insurance claims to cover some or all of their patients’ care.
But with the system in its current state, they can’t do that, which hurts their bottom line and ultimately the quality of care they can provide.
The impact of the group’s hack is so severe that the federal government announced on Saturday that it will distribute relief funds to providers to alleviate financial problems they may face.
Change Healthcare also launched an interim funding program for providers struggling with cash flow following the cyber attack.
It requires the funds to be repaid and gave no indication of when the normal billing process would resume.
Optum Financial Services, through which the scheme is offered, said: ‘We have been able to estimate your average weekly payments which will be the basis of the support.
“Our plan is to take this week by week with people resuming for funding each week as the needs continue.”
UnitedHealth Group, for its part, has not offered a future date by which the issues will be resolved.