- A cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a unit of health IT giant UnitedHealth, is disrupting insurance processing at pharmacies across the United States.
- Patients like Mara Furlich are facing a stark choice: Pay, at least initially, out of pocket for critical care or risk the health consequences of not getting treatment.
- Furlich, a 32-year-old Detroit social worker, paid $1,600 of her own money to get Paxlovid, an FDA-approved drug for mitigating the effects of the coronavirus, as her Covid-19 symptoms worsened.
- The insurer has agreed to reimburse her, but she is one of many Americans in multiple states who are dealing with the fallout of the cyberattack.
- The Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton, the sprawling military base in Southern California, was among the health facilities where prescription services were disrupted by the Change Healthcare hack.
- Prescription insurance processing at big university health systems in Indiana and California have also been disrupted.
- The disruptions were ongoing on Friday afternoon, two days after they began, as a message on Change Healthcare’s website reiterated that it was dealing with a cybersecurity issue that had forced it to disconnect its systems to prevent further impact.
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