LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Pharmacies nationwide face challenges as they deal with a cyberattack.
The breach targeting United Healthcare started last week and has some patients on edge when getting their prescriptions.
Suppose you're picking up a prescription from your pharmacy soon. In that case, there's a chance you may have to pay more for your medication because of a nationwide cyber-attack targeting Change Healthcare, a technology company owned by United Healthcare.
"I've seen insurance go down before [only] for about a day or two," Pharmacy at Wellington Pharmacist Jenny Wells said. "I've never seen it last this long."
The Pharmacy at Wellington in Arkansas is experiencing some of these issues firsthand, as they're unable to determine copays for patients right now because of the attack.
"We can offer a cash price higher than your prescription copay," Wells said. "We can say, 'Hey, if you want to pay cash today, we'll pay you back the difference when the systems are back online.'"
The other option is to wait until systems are back up and running correctly.
In the meantime, they're adjusting to serve patients as best they can.
"If the cash price is too expensive, maybe we call the doctor to change the medicine to something more affordable," Wells said.
Wells and Arkansas Pharmacists Association CEO John Vinson hope to see this resolved sooner rather than later.
"It's under federal investigation on what the cause is," Vinson said. "The pragmatic reality is that it's interrupting patient care and access to care."
Vinson said if the problem continues for much longer, small businesses may face cash flow challenges.
"Majority of pharmacies in Arkansas and the patients that fill prescriptions at those pharmacies are being impacted," Vinson said.
We contacted United Healthcare, who sent a statement regarding the issue.
“Since identifying the cyber incident, we have worked closely with customers and clients to ensure people have access to the medications and the care they need," United Healthcare said. "We also continue to work closely with law enforcement and a number of third parties, including Mandiant and Palo Alto Networks, on this attack against Change Healthcare’s systems. We appreciate the partnership and hard work of all of our relevant stakeholders to ensure providers and pharmacists have effective workarounds to serve their patients as systems are restored to normal. As we remediate, the most impacted partners are those who have disconnected from our systems and/or have not chosen to execute workarounds.”
United Healthcare provided some other critical points regarding the ongoing cyber-attack:
We estimate more than 90% of the nation’s 70,000+ pharmacies have modified electronic claim processing to mitigate impacts from the Change Healthcare cyber security issue; the remainder have offline processing workarounds.
Both Optum Rx and UnitedHealthcare are seeing minimal reports, including less than 100 out of more than 65 million PBM members not being able to get their prescriptions. Those patients have been immediately escalated, and we have no reports of continuity of care issues.
We understand the impact this issue has had on claims for payers and providers. Any delays to claims processing have yet to impact provider cash flows, as payers typically pay one to two weeks after processing. As we work on bringing systems back online, we are also developing solutions to that challenge if needed.
Hospitals, health systems and providers have connections to multiple clearinghouses and access manual workarounds.