Change Healthcare’s recent cyberattack has hospitals, doctors’ offices, and pharmacies across the country reeling as they struggle to process claims and bill patients. Experts told STAT it’s a glaring example of the risk of consolidation in health care.
Change, which is owned by UnitedHealth Group, is one of the nation’s largest insurance claim processing hubs. A cyberattack, first announced Wednesday, took the entire company’s network down. Hospitals, doctors’ offices, and pharmacies have since resorted to sending claims via fax, validating patients’ insurance over the phone, and watching helplessly as unpaid bills pile up, multiple hospital employees told STAT. In an update Monday, UnitedHealth said it was still working to restore its impacted systems.
Antitrust experts said that the broad repercussions of the Change attack show why putting one conglomerate at the center of multiple health care functions is inherently risky. Vulnerabilities within a single company can be more easily exploited. Change’s massive reach — it connects more than 900,000 physicians, 33,000 pharmacies, and 5,500 hospitals to the insurance companies that pay them — exacerbated the disruption, they said.