BUFFALO, N.Y. — Senator Chuck Schumer announced on Tuesday that federal money will help healthcare providers impacted by a massive cyberattack last month.
The attack on Change Healthcare is in danger of delaying insurance payments to pharmacies and hospitals that rely on them to stay in business. Change Healthcare is owned by UnitedHealth Group, and it's responsible for processing 15-billion claims a year.
Chances are, you are impacted by this or you know someone who is.
The cyberattack on Change Healthcare threatens to delay insurance reimbursements for businesses that rely on that money to stay afloat.
"We purchase our medications from drug distributors. There are three large distributors in the country. Cardinal Health, McKesson, Amerisource. They require payment in seven days. They don't ask you to send a check, they go into our bank account and they take it. And if it's not there, then there's issues," says pharmacist Don Arthur, who owns Brighton Eggert Pharmacy.
Last month, a ransomware group attacked the health care technology company making it so millions of Americans had issues filling their prescriptions.
Pharmacist Don Arthur was able to set up a workaround to get prescriptions to his customers. But now, he's worried about getting reimbursed for the drugs.
"It's a razor-thin margin business, and it's very fragile. So unfortunately, when Cardinal Health went to take the funds for the seven days of medications, we didn't have it because the IHA deposit didn't arrive, and we're obviously, you can imagine how we're interacting with our provider on that," said Don Arthur.
To help, Senator Schumer announced on Tuesday afternoon that the federal government will reimburse hospitals and pharmacies quickly with an advance.
"The hospitals will get payments upfront for their cash. It's a huge shot in the arm. And again to be clear, these payments are not a grant, but an advance which the hospital then repays through a repayment plan once the systems are up and running, and the backlog's been fixed, and they're getting reimbursed from the insurance companies," said Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Schumer also wants the FBI to go after the hackers. He says it's a top priority.
Change Healthcare is working with law enforcement and third-party consultants to determine how this happened.