UnitedHealth’s Change Healthcare is grappling with outages caused by a cyberattack, now entering its seventh day. Pharmacies are implementing alternative methods to address the disruptions.

Change Healthcare’s systems remain offline for the seventh consecutive day after a cyber threat actor infiltrated its network last week. The parent company, UnitedHealth Group, revealed that the majority of U.S. pharmacies have implemented electronic workarounds to minimize the impact.

The breach, attributed to a “suspected nation-state-associated” threat actor, was detected by UnitedHealth on Wednesday, leading to the immediate isolation and disconnection of affected systems. Change Healthcare, specializing in payment and revenue cycle management tools, has experienced system outages affecting pharmacies and health systems nationwide. UnitedHealth reported that over 90% of the country’s pharmacies have adopted modified electronic claims processing workarounds, with the remaining employing offline processing systems.

Despite the disruption, UnitedHealth stated that provider cash flows have not been affected, as payments are typically issued one to two weeks after processing. UnitedHealth, the largest healthcare company in the U.S., owns Optum, a healthcare provider servicing over 100 million patients.

Change Healthcare has expressed confidence that Optum, UnitedHealthcare, and UnitedHealth Group’s systems were not compromised in the attack. The entities are collaborating with external partners, including Palo Alto Networks and Google Cloud’s Mandiant, to assess the breach.

The cyberattack on Change Healthcare comes amid a rising number of health-related cybercrimes, with 2023 setting a record of 725 large healthcare security breaches. Health data is a lucrative target for cybercriminals due to its potential for monetization on the dark web. The nature of the attack on Change Healthcare has not been disclosed by UnitedHealth.

The incident has caused a ripple effect across the U.S. healthcare system, impacting CVS Health and prompting Walgreens to implement procedures to handle prescription-related issues. Consumers like Cary Brazeman have faced challenges in accessing medications due to the disruption, emphasizing the need for effective cybersecurity measures in the healthcare sector.

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