Change Healthcare Introduces Innovative Service Amidst System Outage
On March 1, Change Healthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth, announced the restoration of its ePrescribing service after falling victim to a cyberattack more than a week ago. The incident had reverberations across the U.S. healthcare system, causing disruptions to electronic pharmacy refills and insurance transactions.
In an update on its status page, Change Healthcare confirmed the successful deployment of a new instance of its Rx ePrescribing service, signaling the resumption of services for all its customers. The company stated that it had conducted testing with vendors and multiple retail pharmacy partners to ensure the functionality of transaction types that were impacted by the cyberattack.
However, in a subsequent update, Change Healthcare noted that its Clinical Exchange ePrescribing providers’ tools remain non-operational, indicating ongoing challenges in fully restoring all affected services.
The ePrescribing service is designed for pharmacies to streamline processes related to prescription writing and reduce manual workarounds. On the other hand, the Clinical Exchange ePrescribing service is intended for healthcare providers.
UnitedHealth, the parent company, is actively working to bring back the online pharmacy network in a separate environment. The company aims to scale this environment and establish comprehensive connections with pharmacies and payers. UnitedHealth expressed confidence in announcing the timeline for the pharmacy switch launch early next week, emphasizing the significance of this network for enabling pharmacy claim submissions.
The cyberattack, orchestrated by hackers identifying as the “Blackcat” ransomware group, was disclosed last Wednesday. The ensuing disruptions had a notable impact on various aspects of the U.S. healthcare system, highlighting the vulnerabilities and potential consequences of cyber threats in the healthcare industry. The restoration of Change Healthcare’s ePrescribing service is a step towards normalizing operations and mitigating the impact of the cyber incident on healthcare services and systems.
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