UnitedHealth Group appears to be offering some providers more substantial loans in the wake of the cyberattack on Change Healthcare, according to three doctors who each saw their advances increase up to seven figures.
The apparent change comes as hospitals, doctors, and lobbying groups have for weeks complained about low offers from the company, in some cases less than 1% of their typical weekly billing. Initially, after a mid-February cyberattack took its system offline, hampering insurers’ ability to receive claims and send payments, UnitedHealth offered loans to bridge the gap while the company worked to fix the outage, but many providers said it didn’t accomplish that.
It’s not clear exactly what prompted the change in these providers’ offers, or how broadly it applies. The new offers came just days after UnitedHealth officials met virtually with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and other White House officials. At that meeting, HHS said it explicitly asked UnitedHealth to send advance payments to providers.