In the midst of a cyber breach with over
48 updates, Optum’s Change Healthcare is under significant strain. Change Healthcare, a major clearing house for patient claims, first recognized this malicious attack on its systems on February 21, which has since hampered its payment processing capabilities.
While the majority of recent updates consistently report their current “cybersecurity issue” and assuredly note that “Optum, UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group systems have not been affected by this issue”, these assurances are falling flat with some customers, such as John Couris, CEO of Tampa General Hospital. Couris’s nonprofit hospital utilizes Change Healthcare’s services to process and pay claims. Despite experiencing a smaller cyber-attack in the past, Couris expressed his disappointment with the lack of clarity on the situation.
In a recent discussion with Optum CEO, Amar Desai, Couris sought details on when services would be reinstated. To which Desai replied, “We’ll have an update in two days.” Couris noted that he could empathize with Desai’s position as a fellow CEO, however, he stressed that the expectation for specific answers will soon become paramount as the entire industry has been impacted by this breach.
As reported by
MedCity News, this breach has not only affected business operations of military pharmacies worldwide but also impacted various retail pharmacies across the U.S. Couris speculated about the depth of the breach, stating that the perpetrators may have infiltrated the “brain of their system”, essentially seizing and now holding it ransom.
Believing that Change Healthcare will not succumb to paying the ransom, due to the uncertainty that the culprits would honor the agreement and not introduce any malicious code later, Couris asserts that they are likely to “rebuild their systems”. However, this will undoubtedly need time, causing a potential cash crunch for Tampa General Hospital and others relying on Change Healthcare’s services.
The severity and length of this incident led Couris to consider switching vendors, but quickly realized the hurdles. Couris indicated the vendor change would be a prolonged, disruptive process and emphasized the need to support Optum through this crisis. He conceded that despite the hindrance to daily cash flow, switching vendors does not make financial or operational sense at this time.
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