UnitedHealth brings some Change Healthcare pharmacy services back online

Optum's Change Healthcare has started to bring systems back online after suffering a crippling BlackCat ransomware attack last month that led to widespread disruption to the US healthcare system. United Health Group (UHG) is the largest American health insurance company, and its subsidiary, Optum Solutions, operates the Change Healthcare platform. Change Healthcare operates the largest payment exchange platform between doctors, pharmacies, healthcare providers, and patients in the US. On February 21, 2024, Optum Solutions suffered a ransomware attack by ALPHV/BlackCat, causing extensive outages after servers were allegedly encrypted and the company shut down its IT systems. These outages led to wide disruption at pharmacies and doctor offices, which could not send claims, causing some patients to pay full price for their medications. Today, UHG emailed a statement to BleepingComputer that finally delivered some good news, announcing the electronic prescription systems are back online and fully functional as of March 7. "Electronic prescribing is now fully functional with claim submission and payment transmission also available as of March 7," reads the status update. "We have taken action to make sure patients can access their medicines in the meantime, including Optum Rx pharmacies sending members their medications based on the date needed." The company also promised that the electronic payments platform should gradually return to normal operational status starting on March...