UnitedHealth says it’s doled out $2 billion to health care providers after cyberattack

UnitedHealth Group, in a public update Monday, says it’s provided more than $2 billion to health care providers that have suffered financial disruption in the fallout of a wide-reaching cyberattack.

The cyberattack against its Change Healthcare subsidiary at the end of February had a cascading effect on hospitals, clinics and health care providers across the country that relied on the company’s medical information services for billing.

The Minnetonka-based health care giant said Monday it continues to make progress towards relaunching those information technology systems this month.

The update comes after health care providers last week told the Star Tribune about their challenges accessing assistance funds from the company. The American Hospital Association earlier this month blasted UnitedHealth’s initial financial relief program as insufficient.

“We continue to make significant progress in restoring the services impacted by this cyberattack,” Andrew Witty, the chief executive at UnitedHealth Group, said in a statement. “We know this has been an enormous challenge for health care providers and we encourage any in need to contact us.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services met with health insurers Monday to push other companies on making advance funds available to struggling health care providers. So far, the cash crunch has not resulted in access to care problems, HHS officials say, although the department continues to hear that some small, rural and safety net providers need financial help.

Getting funding to these groups is key to making sure clinics can keep providing care, HHS says. UnitedHealth Group has been asked to serve as a central clearinghouse for information and support, so that providers get connected with resources to prevent cash flow problems, the government says.

UnitedHealth is continuing to enhance and expand funding support for health care providers, the company said, while making it easier for them to access those funds. In its statement, UnitedHealth said it “recognizes the high level of fragmentation of the U.S. health system can result in uneven experiences.”

There’s been significant progress over the past week in getting more claims processed, officials say. The current volume of claims making it through the system, including through workarounds, is back to about 95% of normal.

The cyberattack last month targeted Change Healthcare, a UnitedHealth subsidiary that runs a widely used clearinghouse for electronic claims data that processes 15 billion health care transactions annually. The systems are involved in one out of every three patient records in the U.S.

UnitedHealth Group is cooperating with a federal investigation into the cyberattack while scrambling to restore the systems at Change Healthcare it was forced to shut down to contain the threat.

On Monday, Change Healthcare started releasing medical claims preparation software, an important step toward restoring services. The company expects to provide third-party verification about systems being ready. The company’s electronic payments platform was restored Friday.

UnitedHealth Group launched a temporary financial assistance program March 1 that used historical claims to evaluate need. This was incomplete for some health care providers and, as a result, the help offered was far too little for some.

On March 7, UnitedHealth announced improvements to the initial program and a last-resort offer that could give advanced funds for health care groups without other options.

“The company has launched a series of educational on-demand webinars to help providers and customers learn how to reconnect to our claims and payment networks and to explain how to take advantage of the temporary funding assistance programs,” UnitedHealth Group said Monday in a statement.