Health Information Technology: Data Security

At the current rate of progress, key functions will resume:

• Pharmacy services, including prescribing has resumed
  • Electronic payment functionality will be fully available by March 15
  • Medical claims processing should be restored in a phased in approach starting the week of March 18

Fill out the customer assistance interest form on this site: https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/changehealthcarecyberresponse. You should receive a response within 24-48 hours.

This will help you get into the queue to determine if you are compatible with the iEDI (Optum’s Intelligent Electronic Data Interchange, see description in next question) workaround. If you can be onboarded, your electronic claims can resume. This has resolved 90% of electronic claims and they expect to get to at least 95% of baseline with this solution. However, they are aware some customers cannot use this option. If your system is not compatible, they are working on support alternatives.

Yes, we encourage health centers to sign up for iEDI (Intelligent Electronic Data Interchange). iEDI is a full-scale clearinghouse that is part of the foundational Optum Data Exchange environment that merged with Change Healthcare. This clearinghouse currently exchanges data across the healthcare industry with the same stakeholders. This system is being repurposed as a workaround to host exchanges and submissions for Change Healthcare customers and offers the same functionality but is secured and unaffected, making it a viable option for most customers.

There is a UHG contact interest form that sites can fill out to fast-track participation in iEDI if it is compatible with their systems. To learn about transitioning to iEDI, work with your client manager directly. If you don’t have a client manager, email Change Healthcare Client Services Assistance at client_assistance@optum.com.

UHG is working to operational status for the clearinghouse now and there will notifications to partners on live status—questions can be answered by their tradinghouse partner contacts.

• The clearinghouses will be able to route claims and payments to the same payer IDs using the new systems—follow the submission path as usual via the new connections.

Currently, there are three payment assistance programs available to impacted providers. Payment assistance is based on claims volume processed through Change or United Health Care network payments. It is encouraged that providers reach out to all payers for financial assistance. To start, please visit the Optum Temporary Funding Assistance Program for Providers and register for Optum Pay.

• Program 1: Providers who receive payments from payers that are processed by Change Healthcare
• Program 2: UnitedHealthcare medical, dental and vision providers
• Program 3: Providers who have exhausted all available connection options or may be in the process of implementing technical workaround solutions and who work with a payer who has opted not to advance funds to providers during the period when Change Healthcare systems remain down

Legal terms and conditions of the program have been modified for all participating providers, regardless of date of program en

UHG is still investigating the data which could have been compromised and this is a high priority to determine. The safety of customer data is paramount and UHG has not yet determined what, if any, data was accessed in a formal breach.

Electronic prescribing is now fully functional with claim submission. So far, Change Healthcare has processed almost 6 million prescriptions and they are back to our normal volumes. Additionally, the Change Healthcare Pharmacy Network is back online. These two developments mean all major pharmacy claims and payment systems are back up and functioning.

Claims may be submitted if they were blocked by the breach as soon as the outage is over. There is a coupon program to support impacted patients and sites.

Clinical exchange for laboratory data was implicated and quarantined in the attack. It may impact customers sending and labs receiving orders from them. This is still in progress to be addressed.

The pharmacy claims and payment systems are their primary priorities and most affected customers have been reestablished as of now. There are a lot of other critical products like clinical exchange, patient communication, and laboratory services that are impacted and solutions are in progress.

There is a letter of attestation from the internal and external UHG testing and attestation teams available now for customers on pen testing of deployed systems. The full attestation will take additional time. To review attestation options, please log in to the UHC Provider portal.

UHG is working with their individual payers and products to certify and launch individually and in groups.

Different clearinghouses in Change had different software applications that they interacted with—this means that different clearinghouses and products will go live differently—there are individual runbooks that describe the restart and how it will work and then which applications will be made available.

If your health center is experiencing challenges related to the cyberattack, we would like to hear from you. Please fill out this form so we can better understand how you and your organization have been impacted.

NACHC staff contacts – send them a message using this form:

Vacheria Keys, AVP, Policy and Regulatory Affairs

Julia Skapik, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, Clinical Care and Quality