Nationwide Cyber Attack Slows Down Prescription Processing Across Pharmacies 

Pharmacies across the country are reporting problems with processing patient prescriptions after a cyberattack targeted UnitedHealth.

The attack happened on a unit of UnitedHealth called Change Health in the early hours of Wednesday. It started with connectivity issues and network disruptions in the morning and by the end of the day, a cyber security issue was confirmed.

To minimize further impact, the company’s IT supplier decided to disconnect the entire system until the issue was resolved.

Several pharmacies since then have released statements and taken to their social media to inform how they have been affected by the attack.

For instance, the Naval Hospital in Camp Pendleton, California, took to its X account to inform patients that they would only be able to assist with emergencies and urgent prescriptions.

Similarly, Evans Army Community Hospital in Colorado reported similar problems on their Facebook account and said that this nationwide attack has also sabotaged their ability to process prescriptions, causing long delays and sometimes even then they are unable to complete the process. On top of that, their ability to provide refills has also been impacted.

Chain pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS have also announced disruptions to their service. While CVS promised to navigate through this problem as smoothly as possible, Walgreens informed us that only a small percentage of their process has been impacted. They are still able to process most of the prescriptions “with minimal delay or interruption.”

Change Health is responsible for checking patient’s eligibility for insurance and processing prescriptions to the respective insurance companies for payment. And they do this for thousands of pharmacies. So a problem in that unit means millions of patients won’t be able to access their insurance money.

UnitedHealth’s Response To The Incident 

In a regulatory filing on Thursday, UnitedHealth said that they believed the attack was funded by foreign hackers. As of now, they have managed to isolate the attack so it doesn’t spread to the other units and have also informed necessary law enforcement departments so that the problem is resolved faster.

While no one knows how the company or the authorities are handling the issue, UnitedHealth released another statement that said that it’s expecting the outage to last at least until Thursday or Friday if not more.

They also promised to keep updating the customers as soon as they discover something. Neither CISA nor the FBI have made any comment.

Any company that’s attacked by hackers is required to notify its shareholders about the same. So UnitedHealth’s official notice was also sent to the shareholders, speaking about the attack and promising to keep working until the issue is resolved.

Cyberattacks in the healthcare sector are on the rise. Recently, a cyberattack on Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago made it difficult to access prescription history and medical records.