Change Healthcare Incident Update 03/01/2024

Change Healthcare Incident Update 03/01/2024

Incident Description

Change Healthcare's services remain down due to a security incident which began on 02/21/2024. 

Change Healthcare has posted the following update with new information about the event:

Change Healthcare can confirm we are experiencing a cybersecurity issue perpetrated by a cybercrime threat actor who has represented itself to us as ALPHV/Blackcat.

Our experts are working to address the matter and we are working closely with law enforcement and leading third-party consultants, Mandiant and Palo Alto Network, on this attack against Change Healthcare's systems. We are actively working to understand the impact to members, patients and customers.

Patient care is our top priority, and we have multiple workarounds to ensure people have access to the medications and the care they need. Based on our ongoing investigation, there's no indication that Optum, UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group systems have been affected by this issue.

We are working on multiple approaches to restore the impacted environment and continue to be proactive and aggressive with all our systems, and if we suspect any issue with the system, we will immediately take action.

United Healthcare Claims Payer ID 87726
Etactics has received communication from Availity that they have opened up a direct connection to United Healthcare that circumvents Change Healthcare. This notice gave us satisfactory evidence that claims would be routed appropriately. We began sending UHC claims starting on 02/29, and at this time all backlogged claims have been sent. 

Other Payer Claims

Etactics has been working closely with Inovalon and Availity on the following high volume payers, and as of this morning 3/1 at 11am  EST, all backlogged claims have been sent. New claims will now be routed via the confirmed successful routes.

  • Health Partners of MN (94267)
  • Healthfirst (80141)
  • Molina Healthcare of Washington (38336)
  • Priority Health (38217)
  • Molina Healthcare of Ohio (20149)

We are continuously working on identifying alternative routes for our smaller payers, and those claims are being sent out as those routes are discovered and tested.

Eligibility Payer Updates

In addition to the payers listed in previous announcements, the following payers have been successfully re-routed to alternative routes, so Eligibility requests can be processed successfully:

  • Blue Shield Idaho Regence (BCSID)
  • Medicaid Montana (MCDMT)
  • GEHA - Dental (44054)

In addition to the payers listed in previous announcements, we have found that the following payers can only be routed via Change Healthcare or would require re-enrollment for Eligibility; requests will return errors until connectivity is restored with them.

  • Medicaid Utah (MCDUT)
  • Clover Health (77023)
  • WEB-TPA Inc (WBTPA)
  • Loyal American Life Ins Co - Medicare Supplement (13193)
  • The Health Plan of West Virginia (UOVP)
  • Ucare of Minnesota (MNUCAR)
  • Medicaid California (MCDCA)

Actions Needed by Customers

Submit claims as usual. Claims which would be routed to a payer via Change Healthcare will remain in a “Clearinghouse Accepted” status. When connectivity with Change Healthcare is restored, claims will be sent as usual. If alternative routing for a payer is found, these claims may update their status sooner. 

Etactics commits to confirming that claims are received by the next “hop” in the route to the payer. Etactics monitors and investigates claims that are not reported as received by the next entity in the route to the payer. 

Expect some eligibility payers and claim status payers to return an error. As Etactics investigates alternative routes, some payers may become available again. 

ERAs (AKA checks or remits) that route through Change Healthcare will be delayed until Change Healthcare restores connectivity. Please be aware of the delay and be sensitive to this issue when submitting missing ERA inquiries. 

Check your Global Alerts for updates to existing alerts and/or new alerts.

Our next planned update will be Monday, March 4th.



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