With the cyberattack still weeks away, healthcare providers are knocking off United

More than two weeks after a cyberattack, financially strapped doctors, hospitals and medical providers sharply criticized UnitedHealth Group’s latest report on Friday. estimation that it would take weeks longer to fully restore a digital network that channels hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance payments every day.

UnitedHealth said it would take at least two more weeks to test and establish a steady stream of payments for bills that have increased since hackers effectively shut down Change Healthcare, the nation’s largest billing and payment clearinghouse, on Feb. 21 .

But desperate providers who have borrowed money to cover expenses and worker wages expressed skepticism about that estimate and worried it could take months for the logjam of claims and payments to clear.

“We are almost three weeks short of cash flow,” said Brad Larsen, psychologist and founder of Portland Mental Health & Wellness in Oregon, adding that the group has received only about 10 percent of expected insurance payments. He said the practice had to borrow $300,000 to meet the first of two payroll payments for the month. “It is not good.”

In an apparent effort to assuage some providers who had expressed disappointment with United’s previous resolution of a loan program that offered emergency payments as low as $20 per week, the parent company agreed to provide advances. United announced that its insurer, the largest in the United States, would advance payments to hospitals and physicians based on amounts billed before the cyberattack.

And since Change manages one in three patient files – accounting for fifteen billion transactions per year – the cyber attack affected not only United’s customers, but also those of many other insurers. That led the president of UnitedHealth to recommend that they also offer advances. “To me, that’s the fastest way to get money into the hands of the providers,” Dirk McMahon, United’s president and chief operating officer, said in an interview. .

The scale of the cyberattack, which crippled billing and payments from the simplest prescriptions at a drugstore to the most expensive operations, has roiled the industry and government. Some have expressed concern that the worst is far from over as they fear the ransomware attack has compromised patient data.

UnitedHealth Group has declined to comment on whether its policyholders’ information — financial or medical or through coverage at pharmacies, hospitals or clinics — had been compromised. The company’s only response was that it continues to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in an investigation into the attack. The FBI and US cybersecurity experts conducted an investigation.

On March 1, a Bitcoin address linked to the suspected hackers, a group known as AlphV or BlackCat, received a $22 million transaction that some security firms said was likely a ransom payment United made to the group, according to a news article Wired. United declined to comment, as did Recorded futurethe security company that initially noticed the payment.

“United has not disclosed what information was released to the hackers,” said Ed Tilley, a licensed clinical social worker in Charlotte, NC. Among the information he typically submits for billing on the Change network is a patient’s date of birth and diagnosis. . “If my patients’ identifying information has been made public, I feel obligated to tell them,” he said.

Since the cyberattack became public, UnitedHealth Group shares have fallen 7.7 percent.

UnitedHealth Group said payments would not become available until around March 15 and that it would begin testing and establishing the connections that will allow hospitals and doctors to submit claims the week of March 18. But Mr McMahon acknowledged that this time frame could change. “We are in a very fluid environment,” he said.

“We’re working like crazy to get these systems to market,” Mr. McMahon said.

While most of the gaps in pharmacy transactions appear to have been resolved, he suggested that hospitals and physicians should continue to look for solutions. But for some providers this means switching to Change’s competitors, who are now inundated with new claims and struggling to cope with the increased workload.

“I filed a few claims with the new system, which took me a few hours, and then I thought, ‘Where are they?'” And a bubble popped up saying, ‘No one can respond to you at the moment.’ . said Angela Belleville, a mental health counselor in Salem, Massachusetts. “I tried again yesterday and the system was completely frozen.”

Other major insurers have remained largely silent on whether they would provide advances, as Mr. McMahon suggested, or offer other relief.

“They were crickets,” said Chip Kahn, president of the American Federation of Hospitals, which represents for-profit hospitals. As money from previously filed claims begins to dry up, “you’re in the danger zone,” he said.

Smaller businesses in particular aren’t sitting on piles of cash to tide them over while they wait for new refunds.

“We’re now past the two-week mark and people are starting to worry,” said Maggie Williams, co-owner of Flourish Business Solutions, which advises medical practices on billing.

She says she’s getting calls from doctors concerned that they may not be able to meet payroll or may eventually have to stop providing services to patients in the coming weeks. “Often there are no reserves to support services or payroll,” she said.

In a statement, the American Hospital Association, a trade group, said: “Nothing in the announcement materially changes the chronic cash flow impacts and uncertainty that our nation’s hospitals and physicians are experiencing as a result.” The group also said it would “take weeks – if not months – for our hospitals and other healthcare providers to heal.”

The powerful hospital lobby has been among those who have called on federal officials to ease these pressures by accelerating Medicare reimbursements to providers, similar to efforts made during the pandemic to woo hospitals and doctors.

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a series of steps, including efforts to advance Medicare payments to health care providers. The department urged private insurers to do so as well and called on private Medicare plans to relax or eliminate much-criticized prior authorization rules that make it harder for health care providers to get paid for care.

UnitedHealthcare also announced it would relax prior authorization requirements for its Medicare Advantage plans through the end of March.

In addition to news of the damage caused by the cyberattack, the closure of parts of Change Healthcare has once again focused attention on the consolidation of medical companies, physician groups and other entities under UnitedHealth Group. United’s acquisition of Change in a $13 billion deal in 2022 was initially challenged by federal prosecutors but went ahead after the government lost its case.

On Friday, caregivers seeking advice or assistance from a Change Healthcare customer support representative were greeted with a recorded message: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are unable to answer your call at this time. Try again later. Thanks for calling.” And then the call was disconnected.