In a letter to UnitedHealth Group (UNH), the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is pressuring the health insurance company to pay medical service providers in the wake of a cyberattack on Chance Healthcare — a UnitedHealth subsidiary — that compromised its payments system.
Yahoo Finance Health Reporter Anjalee Khemlani breaks down HHS officials' statement to UnitedHealth.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: US Department of Health and Human Services sending a message to health care leaders, talking about what has played out at UnitedHealth Group. And they want UnitedHealth Group to take additional actions to mitigate the fallout from the cyberattack on change health care. Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani is here with the latest. Anj.
ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right, Seana. The health department sending a letter to UnitedHealth Group over the weekend saying things like the company needs to do a better job of being communicative and transparent, as well as making sure that they are making funds available for those providers whose payment systems were affected and who were basically put on pause for the longest time. The health service-- human health services calling them out to make sure that the cash flow continues.
Now, what we've seen develop in the last several days is UnitedHealth sort of taking a stance of this is just a payment process system in the flow of things, and other providers, including other health service providers as well as insurers, also taking a stand in helping those providers whose payments were stopped in the form of loans, as well as just available cash. Medicare as well, which falls under the health department, also doing the same thing, as well as removing barriers like prior authorization.
Now, UnitedHealth has also taken a stance of being transparent in their communication, immediately notifying of the cyberattack that affected them back in February, and taking the stance that they were also communicative of that. But the health department also, in that same letter, calling out the department-- calling out the company, saying that they need to be more communicative about what is going on.
And it seems like a lot of providers are also feeling that criticism about not having enough communication, not knowing what is happening with change and how to get back online even though the company has provided regular updates. So there's still a lot of backlash from this incident, and a lot of criticism that the really large health care company has not done enough to mitigate the attack and help the providers that have been impacted. So it's still unraveling in an ongoing situation right now.
BRAD SMITH: All right. Yahoo Finance's own Anjalee Khemlani. Anj, thanks so much for breaking this down for us. Appreciate it.
