URGENT Flash: Follow Up on Change Health Cyber-Attack

The cyberattack on Change Healthcare continues today with many systems remaining disconnected as they evaluate the impacts and try to bring those systems back online. Health Alliance^TM  has been in active communication with Change Healthcare to thoroughly understand the nature and extent of the incident since the cyberattack was reported on February 21. Change Healthcare has been placing updates at Status.ChangeHealthcare.com as well. The primary impact to Health Alliance is that we are unable to receive claims nor are we able to pay providers and send payment remits. Health Alliance has aggressively explored options for our providers to be able to submit claims and be paid for their work.

We’re pleased to announce that Health Alliance has an agreement with a new to provide claims clearinghouse services. We’ll be working with Availity to provide those services as the Change Healthcare outage continues. This is a top priority for our teams to support this transition to Availity and allow our providers to bill us once again. We do not have a definite timeline on when that will become available for you or your clearinghouse to submit your claims to, but we’ll communicate with you right away once it is. As previously communicated, please do not drop claims to paper as this will not achieve the results you desire. Furthermore, we have selected a payment/remit alternative and are in the process of implementation and will be communicating when that is available as soon as possible.

Until claims resume flowing and provider payments/remits can be made, Change Healthcare (an Optum subsidiary) also announced a program called Optum Pay on March 1 that allows providers to be paid while the system outage is still happening. Change Healthcare has recognized that this attack has severely impacted providers’ cash flow and has developed this program to help in the interim. More information on the program and how providers may sign up is at www.optum.com/temporaryfunding. There are also FAQs on that page to help providers understand how the program works. It’s important to note that this program would be between Change Healthcare/Optum and the provider, and that Health Alliance will not be involved.

We’re committed to helping and serving you through this time. Please reach out with any questions you may have.