Sheridan Memorial Hospital patients will experience a delay in billing following a cyberattack that affected hospitals and other healthcare facilities across the country last month.
Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, processes one-third of healthcare claims across the country. The company was hacked by a ransomware group Feb. 21, preventing millions of healthcare claims from being filed with insurance firms, including the vast majority of those originating from Sheridan Memorial Hospital.
According to Change Healthcare, once the company became aware of the outside threat, it took immediate action to disconnect compromised systems. Sheridan Memorial Hospital also immediately disconnected access to Change Healthcare’s systems and SMH’s cybersecurity partner CrowdStrike did an assessment of the hospital’s systems, determining there were no indicators of a data breach within SMH.
The federal government has since launched an investigation into UnitedHealth Group and Change Healthcare to determine whether a breach of protected health information occurred and review the companies’ compliance with patient-privacy regulations.
Alternate claims processing platforms have been established and are currently being tested, but billing from Sheridan Memorial Hospital will be delayed as systems come back online. SMH anticipates billing to resume at its normal pace by late April. The delay will not impact the amount owed by patients, only the timing in which bills are received.
Additional information regarding the breach of Change Healthcare and its impact on Sheridan Memorial Hospital patients will be released in the coming weeks.