Cybersecurity
UnitedHealth Hack Puts the Squeeze on Smaller Pharmacies
- Local health-care firms seeking answers on ransomware attack
- Medication fees starting to pile up, leading to hard questions
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As the ripple effects from a hack on a UnitedHealth Group Inc. unit extend for more than a week, some health-care providers face an increasingly difficult dilemma: whether to deny medication to patients or risk not being paid for costly treatment.
For days, providers have been unable to verify if a patient’s health insurance will cover the cost of their prescription, typically an almost-instantaneous check that Change Healthcare, the victim of the cyberattack, provided to these businesses. However, operators of smaller pharmacies say they can only cover the cost of prescriptions — while they wait to be reimbursed — for so long.