Ransomware attack on U.S. health care payment processor ‘most serious incident of its kind’

[Timber Rattler]

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/ransomware-attack-u-health-care-164010100.html

Fallout from a ransomware attack on the country’s largest health care payment processor is “the most serious incident of its kind leveled against a U.S. health care organization,” American Hospital Association CEO Rick Pollack said Thursday evening.

The attack has crippled Change Healthcare, a company that provides a widely used program for health care providers to manage customer payments and insurance claims. The company has taken most of its systems offline to prevent the attack from spreading, a common countermeasure.

“Nine days into the attack on Change Healthcare, a health care technology company that is part of Optum and owned by UnitedHealth Group, effects are continuing to be felt throughout the entire health care system,” Pollack said in a news release. The American Hospital Association is the country’s largest health care industry group.

That outage has been devastating for small and midsize health care providers. Doctors told CNBC that the outage has prevented them from being able to electronically fill prescriptions and has kept insurance providers from reimbursing providers.

Later on Friday, Change said it had completed a new workaround for its electronic prescription service that is immediately available to all customers.

Excerpt.