Pharmacies across the United States were suffering outages as a technology company reported that it was the target of a cyberattack.
Pharmacies across the United States were suffering outages as a health technology company reported that it was the target of a cyberattack.
Change Healthcare, which handles patient payments and orders for pharmacies around the nation, confirmed in a statement on Thursday afternoon that it noticed a cybersecurity incident impacting its networks, according to its website.
“Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue and our experts are working to address the matter. Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems to prevent further impact,” Change Healthcare told news outlets.
It added that “we believe the issue is specific to Change Healthcare and all other systems across UnitedHealth Group are operational,” while “the disruption is expected to last at least through the day.”
The company said in a series of updates that it noticed the outages on Wednesday morning. The outage appeared to be still ongoing as of around 12 p.m. ET.
The nature of the cybersecurity issue was not disclosed, and other details were not provided. It’s also unclear when the service outage will be resolved.
Several pharmacies this week have said they were unable to access the systems and reported an outage due to the cyberattack, according to reports.
For example, Scheurer Health, based in Michigan, wrote on social media that it couldn’t process prescriptions via their insurance due to the “nationwide outage from the largest prescription processor in North America,” referring to Change Healthcare.
Another Michigan company, Canadian Lakes Pharmacy, wrote that “there is a nationwide outage from some of the largest prescription processors in North America,” while adding: “We CAN receive your RX but MOST insurance plans we cannot bill to your insurance company. If you can wait a day or so to pick up your RX that would be great. If you need it today we can do our best to accommodate individual needs.”
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