In this illustration, the UnitedHealth Group Inc logo is displayed on a tablet.
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Change Healthcare said Friday it has finished creating a new online prescription service, which could help provide some relief to pharmacies and doctors struggling to deal with the fallout from an ongoing cyberattack.
UnitedHealth GroupChange Healthcare, the parent company, said it is also launching a temporary financing assistance program to help providers manage their “short-term” cash flow needs.
UnitedHealth discovered that a cyber threat actor compromised part of the unit's IT network on February 21, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. UnitedHealth isolated and disconnected the affected systems “immediately upon discovery” of the threat, which has since caused waves of disruption across the health care system, the filing said.
Change Healthcare offers payment and revenue cycle management tools that help process transactions between providers and most major insurance companies. It also offers an electronic prescription program.
In an update on Friday, Change Healthcare said it had successfully tested a new version of its “Rx ePrescribing service” with vendors and retail pharmacy partners. The service was enabled for all customers starting at 2pm ET on Friday, though the company added that existing clinical exchange e-prescription providers' tools were still not working.
UnitedHealth also launched a website on Friday with information about Change Healthcare's response to the attack. UnitedHealth said on the website that it is creating a temporary financing assistance program to assist providers whose payment distributions were interrupted.
The program will not have any fees, interest or other costs associated with it, and the money will have to be repaid when standard operations resume, the company said. Providers can check their eligibility using a link through the new website.
“We understand the urgent need to resume payments and continue the flow of payments through the healthcare ecosystem,” UnitedHealth said on the website.
The company added that the program is not intended for providers experiencing disruptions in submitting their claims. UnitedHealth recommends using manual solutions for claims, and said it is working to process the 15% of claims that alternative solutions cannot handle.
UnitedHealth said late Monday night that more than 90% of the nation's pharmacies have created modified solutions to process electronic claims, while the rest have created offline processing systems. The company said Friday that its data indicates that pharmacy claims are “flowing in at near-normal levels,” according to the new website.
Many of the company's systems were down for 10 straight days.
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