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CAPITAL REGION, N.Y. (NEWS10) -The company Change Healthcare, which is under the umbrella of UnitedHealth, reported a cyberattack Wednesday. This has impacted pharmacies nationwide when it comes to paying healthcare providers.
Change Healthcare disconnected its systems from those impacted by the cyber issue to contain the situation. As a switch company, they act in the middle of providers and insurance plans to make sure claims are paid out.
“There is only two major switching companies nationwide. Lots of companies use lots of companies. Lots of pharmacies use Change Healthcare. It can be very problematic,” said Supervising Pharmacist at Lincoln Pharmacy, Dr. Zarina Jalal.
“Pharmacies like ours and many others actually use other alternative switch companies, but we do use Change Healthcare for a small part of business. Particularly with New York State Medicaid clients,” added Assemblyman John McDonald with Marra’s Pharmacy.
The New York State Department of Health (DOH) says there has been an ever-increasing number of cyberattacks on healthcare facilities over the last five years. The DOH told NEWS10:
“At the direction of Governor Hochul, the Departments of Health and Financial Services are working closely with pharmacies, health facilities, insurers, and all impacted entities to ensure continuity of care for all New Yorkers.”
Dr. Jalal explained that the data potentially compromised may still be safe. “I do know that a lot of healthcare data is encrypted. Even between one computer to the next computer within our stores. It may not necessarily be in a format that is usable.”
McDonald stated his customers at Marra’s pharmacy will not see a financial impact due to the cyberattack for now. “If it’s three or four days, that’s something tolerable. If it’s three or four weeks, that’s going to be a challenge and we need to be mindful of that.”
The cause of the cyber attack is still under investigation. The service outage was expected to end Saturday and officials have not given an update.
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