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UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH) has begun whittling away at a $14 billion backlog of medical claims as it seeks to recover from a cyberattack against Nashville-based Change Healthcare, one of its subsidiaries, last month.
Reuters reports on the latest efforts by Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, which said on Friday it has resumed some key software services that were disrupted by the attack on Change Healthcare.
Change Healthcare is a technology services firm that acts as a go-between for health care providers, pharmacies and insurers. UnitedHealth purchased the Nashville company in October 2022 for $13 billion.
The attack, first disclosed by UnitedHealth in February, has disrupted much of the usual back-office functions of the nation's health care system in the weeks that followed. UnitedHealth was forced to disconnect more than 100 systems as a result of the hack, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Patients have seen only limited disruptions, but providers that relied on Change Healthcare systems are having a harder time getting paid. Health centers that provide care for poor and uninsured patients have had a particularly challenging time, Reuters noted.
In its most recent update on Friday, UnitedHealth said that it's advanced $2.5 billion in payments to health providers who have been hurt by the disruption, up from the $2 billion announced a week ago. And it extended the amount of time providers will have to repay the assistance funds to 45 business days.
The health-insurance giant said that it plans to bring several systems back online this week, including its reimbursement manager systems and MedRX, which handles pharmacy electronic claims. Other systems are scheduled for repair in the early weeks of April. But the company still doesn't have timelines for all of its systems. Experts have said that a complete recovery could take months.
BlackCat, a Russian ransomware gang also known as ALPHV, was linked to the attack, UnitedHealth said in regulatory filings. UnitedHealth didn't say whether it paid a ransom, though reports have suggested the company paid $22 million.
UnitedHealth closed the deal to buy Change Healthcare in October 2022 after a long dispute with antitrust regulators. At the time of the deal, Change Healthcare was Nashville’s largest health care IT company, with more than 870 local employees and $3.4 billion of revenue in 2022, according to Business Journal research.
