Small private practices and health-care providers are facing mounting financial pressures as crucial reimbursement systems remain down for the ninth day, following the cyberattack on Change Healthcare.
Change Healthcare offers tools for payment and revenue cycle management that help facilitate transactions between providers and most major insurance companies. Its parent company UnitedHealth Group discovered that a cyber threat actor breached part of the unit’s information technology network on Feb. 21, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
As a result, the company isolated and disconnected the impacted systems “immediately upon detection” of the threat, the filing said.
The fallout has caused a ripple of disruption across the U.S. health-care system.
Doctors told CNBC the outage has left them unable to check patients’ eligibility for treatment or fill prescriptions electronically, which has created more administrative responsibility for workers that are already overwhelmed by clerical work. Perhaps more importantly, providers have been unable to receive reimbursements from insurers, effectively grinding many health systems’ revenue cycles to a halt.
Smaller and mid-sized practices that rely on reimbursement cash flow to operate are making tough decisions about how to stay afloat. If the outage drags on for too long, experts say some practices may have to close their doors for good.
Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist with a private practice in New York City, told CNBC that the breach has been a “mess” and a “big stressor.” Like many others, she said her practice hasn’t been able to receive reimbursements from insurers for patient visits, which makes it difficult for the practice to pay for operational expenses like payroll and medical supplies.
Switching to a new platform could take weeks, Parikh said, so there’s no immediate workaround available. As of Thursday, Change Healthcare has…
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