MINNETONKA, Minn. — On Wednesday, one of United HealthGroup's subsidiaries was hit with a cyberattack. The company reported the attack in a government filing on Thursday where it noted an identified suspected actor from a nation-state association gained access to some of Change Healthcare systems.
"This isn't just pharmacy; this is all healthcare," Jon Hoeschen, owner of St. Paul Corner Drug said. "This is hospitals. This is medical clinics. This is a lot of arms of the healthcare industry right now that are crippled because of this outage."
Hoeschen previously used Change Healthcare but switched software's last year. His pharmacy escaped the disruption, but hundreds of others didn't.
Change Healthcare is a technology that connects healthcare systems to pharmacists. It primarily provides information on insurance claims for prescriptions. On their website, the company says they handle 15 billion healthcare transactions a year.
United HealthGroup reports it proactively isolated the impacted systems from other connecting systems. The company is working with leading security experts and is working with law enforcement and notified customers, clients, and certain government agencies. Other United HealthGroup systems are operating.
CVS pharmacies are juggling disruptions. In a statement to KARE 11, a spokesperson said:
There is no indication that CVS Health’s systems have been compromised. We’re committed to ensuring access to care as we navigate through this interruption. We have business continuity plans in place to minimize disruption of service and apologize for any inconvenience our customers and members may experience. We’re continuing to fill prescriptions but in certain cases we are not able to process insurance claims, which our business continuity plan is addressing to ensure patients continue to have access to their medications.
Local pharmacies within Cub Foods are manually filling prescriptions, according to a company spokesperson. The company has roughly 80 pharmacies across the state.
Walgreens reports a "small percentage" of prescriptions impacted, adding they have procedures in place to continue to process and fill these prescriptions with minimal interruptions.
Mayo Clinic told KARE 11 they're managing the disruption.
"Our teams are managing prescriptions that are due in the near future for special handling, assuring patients with serious health issues have what they need," Dan Lea, Mayo Clinic spokesperson said. "For patients needing to fill or refill nonurgent prescriptions, there may be delays.”
Hoeschen says he has concerns over large companies acquiring other large companies like what happened when United HealthGroup bought Change Healthcare systems.
"They have a lot of people's data because that's their business. What's being held, what got accessed, what's on the line. Nobody knows," he said. "Well, somebody knows but we don't know."
Updates from United HealthGroup can be found here.
On Friday, Change Healthcare sent out the following statement:
Change Healthcare is experiencing a cyber security issue, and our experts are working to address the matter. Once we became aware of the outside threat, and in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect Change Healthcare’s systems to prevent further impact. This action was taken so our customers and partners do not need to. We have a high-level of confidence that Optum, UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group systems have not been affected by this issue.
We are working on multiple approaches to restore the impacted environment and will not take any shortcuts or take any additional risk as we bring our systems back online. We will continue to be proactive and aggressive with all our systems and if we suspect any issue with the system, we will immediately take action and disconnect. The disruption is expected to last at least through the day. We will provide updates as more information becomes available.
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