NBC News (3/6, Silva , Bendix ) reports, “Desperate patients around the country have been forced to choose between paying out of pocket for essential medications or forgoing them entirely as the aftermath of a cyberattack on a major health care company stretches into its third week.” Since Change Healthcare “detected the attack on” February 21, “pharmacies, doctors offices and patients say their lives and work have been upended due to widespread outages in systems commonly used for medical billing and insurance claims.” American Medical Association President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, said, “Anything that requires interaction between health plans, a pharmacy, a facility, an office has been disrupted. … That has far-reaching implications, whether you’re on routine, standard medications, whether you rely on a rebate program from a pharmaceutical company, whether you’re just trying to get clearance to have routine elective surgery.”
Related Links:
— “Patients struggle to get lifesaving medication after cyberattack on a major health care company,”Daniella Silva and Aria Bendix, NBC News, March 6, 2024