Community health centers still bogged down by red tape after
UnitedHealth hack
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[June 05, 2024]
By Amina Niasse
NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than three months after a cyberattack on
UnitedHealth Group's technology unit, some community health centers,
which serve 30 million low-income and uninsured patients, are still
wading through red tape to receive back payments and struggling with
operations issues.
Change Healthcare, a unit of the largest U.S. health insurer, processes
about 50% of all medical claims in the U.S., for around 900,000 doctors,
33,000 pharmacies, 5,500 hospitals and 600 labs. It also runs other
support services like call centers.
All were shut temporarily after the Feb. 21 ransomware attack and some,
like the medical claims system, took one or two months to restart.
Reuters spoke with five community health centers or systems who said
they were still reconciling older unpaid medical claims and tracking
down missing payments. Three said they lost customers due to various
hack-related disruptions.
"The negative longer term consequences of this huge reimbursement
disruption are worse for providers whose profit margin was slim to begin
with," said Assistant Professor of Division of Health Policy &
Management Hannah Neprash at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/05/images/ads/current/culligan_sda_PROMGRAD_2024.png)
"That is rural hospitals, safety net hospitals, and community health
centers, any place that treats large shares of publicly insured
patients," Neprash said.
A UnitedHealth spokesperson declined to comment on continued
reimbursement or call service issues raised by providers. The company's
website says restoration of claims services is underway or partly
complete.
In May testimony to a U.S. Senate committee on the cyberattack,
UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty described the hack as causing "incredible
disruption" across the healthcare system.
The company had distributed $6.5 billion in loans to providers as of
last month. About 34% went to safety net hospitals and community health
centers, Witty wrote in his testimony to the committee.
OVERTIME
Employees at Nevada Health Centers' 26 locations have consistently
logged over 100 hours of overtime per week filing additional paperwork
to correct patient eligibility or wrongly denied claims, according to
Executive Vice President of Revenue Cycle and Population Health J.C.
Flowers.
The health centers need more labor hours than ever, but may need to cut
jobs as they wrestle with delayed cash flow and seek overdue payments
from insurers, he said.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/05/images/ads/current/ldn_smallsda_BUSINESSMAG_2023.png)
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![](../images/060524PIX/health92.jpg)
The corporate logo of the UnitedHealth Group appears on the side of
one of their office buildings in Santa Ana, California, U.S., April
13, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/05/images/ads/current/peasleymemorials_lda_2022.png) “It’s a real fear when you're used
to averaging a million dollars a month in revenue, and all of a
sudden, for the next eight months, you're going to do $600,000,”
said Flowers, who said Nevada Health Centers employs about 150
health professionals.
With insurance claims backlogged for months,
paperwork justifying each payment makes up the bulk of the
cyberattack's continued burden for providers, according to Terrence
Cunningham, a policy director at the American Hospital Association.
In an April physician survey published by the American Medical
Association, 91% of respondents said they needed to commit staff to
recouping revenue lost to the hack.
“Organizations have to shift money around to deal with the
aftermath, and it's going to affect them for the entire fiscal year,
at the very least,” said Julia Skapik, chief medical information
officer at the National Association of Community Health Centers.
Community Health Centers receive $4.4 billion in annual government
funding.
IMPATIENT PATIENTS
Some providers said their relationships with patients suffered as a
result of disrupted services.
Delaware Valley Community Health, based in Philadelphia, cut ties
with a call center that used Change Healthcare technology.
“We've had to use our own employees now to try and answer the
phones, and we’ve gotten patients upset with us," said Dr. A. Scott
McNeal, Delaware Valley's CEO, adding that longer waits led some to
hang up without scheduling appointments.
At LCH Health and Community Services, a Kennett Square,
Pennsylvania-based provider, some patients who couldn't easily fill
prescriptions blamed the practice and went elsewhere, Chief
Executive Ronan Gannon said.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/05/images/ads/current/dreamteammow_sda_060324.png)
That has exacerbated LCH's revenue crunch, as higher paying
privately insured patients left and people without insurance paying
lower fees became a bigger percentage, he said.
(Reporting by Amina Niasse; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill
Berkrot)
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