STAT+: UnitedHealth cyberattack impedes pharmacies’ and hospitals’ ability to process insurance claims

Hospitals, pharmacies, and other health care providers are getting stuck in an insurance processing logjam after UnitedHealth Group disclosed a cyberattack within a recently acquired subsidiary that serves as a central hub for payments across the industry.

The cyberattack and subsequent system outage within UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare has caught the attention of federal law enforcement agencies. The FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Department of Health and Human Services will be on a call Friday afternoon with executives from UnitedHealth, the American Hospital Association, and the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which is a group of hospitals, insurers, and other health care companies that share information on cyber threats, according to a hospital executive who shared the call details with STAT.

The severity of the attack started to become more apparent Thursday after UnitedHealth disclosed a “suspected nation-state” is behind the cyberattack, which began on Wednesday. UnitedHealth has “retained leading security experts, is working with law enforcement, and notified customers, clients, and certain government agencies,” the company said in its investor disclosure. The company took down its Change Healthcare payment systems, which remain out. It would not disclose any other information and directed STAT to its update page.

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