Getting some prescriptions will continue to be a headache, as a hacker attack on a division of UnitedHealth is causing chaos across the country.
The company, in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said its Change Healthcare business, which provides prescription processing services for pharmacies, had been compromised by bad actors. In an update on its website Friday morning, just before 10 a.m. ET, the company said it is still trying to address the issue.
“Once we became aware of the external threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems to prevent further impacts,” he wrote. “At this time, we believe the issue is specific to Change Healthcare and that all other UnitedHealth Group systems are operational. The inconveniences are expected to last at least for the whole day.”
(The company regularly posts the same update starting at 11:30 a.m. Thursday every few hours.)
UnitedHealth says it believes the intrusion was specific to Change Healthcare and that all of its other systems remain operational.
With the system offline, however, some pharmacies are unable to process prescriptions to insurance companies, which allows them to receive payments. Happy Rx, on Twitter/X, warned customers that outages could occur Thursday. And the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital website warns patients that getting the drugs will be a long process for a while.
“Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton and associated pharmacies will provide outpatient prescriptions through a manual process until the issue is resolved,” he wrote. “Priority will be given to urgent prescriptions followed by routine prescriptions, as staff and resources allow. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate our beneficiaries’ patience and understanding as it takes longer than usual to safely fill prescription needs.”
UnitedHealth shares were unaffected by Friday’s hack, trading slightly higher. The company told the SEC that it “has not determined that the incident is reasonably likely to have a material impact on the company’s financial condition or results of operations.”