Over the past week, Optum and its parent company United Healthcare have been dealing with a cyberattack on their Change Healthcare subsidiary. Change Healthcare processes thousands of healthcare and pharmacy claims daily. As a protective measure, on February 21, 2024, Optum publicly announced the problem and effectively shut down Change Healthcare services.
The Wall Street Journal explained on Tuesday, February 27, 2024.
“Affected [Change Healthcare] systems include those related to claims management, payment services, appointment scheduling, billing and data exchanges, among others.
“The incident has had a profound effect on pharmacy operations in the U.S. and worldwide, with Optum providing services to more than 67,000 pharmacies and care for 131 million individual customers. Tricare, the U.S. military’s healthcare service for active-duty personnel, said its clinics, pharmacies and hospitals globally have been forced to revert to manual procedures for prescription processing.”
This is a developing story.