The Nationwide Neighborhood Pharmacists Affiliation (NCPA) and dozens of suppliers have filed a category motion lawsuit towards UnitedHealth Group (UHG) for losses from the Change Healthcare cyberattack that occurred earlier this yr. The plaintiffs argued that Change Healthcare, which was acquired by UHG in 2022, didn’t take satisfactory precautions towards the assault and precipitated main monetary losses for suppliers.
“UnitedHealth Group and its subsidiaries have to be held accountable for his or her lax safety measures and for his or her failure to supply our members with satisfactory help and assurances to alleviate the monetary losses our members suffered. … This breach proves that greater is just not higher and that consolidation typically results in inefficiencies,” mentioned NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey in an announcement. “Firms are so massive they can’t defend each entry level and can’t reply rapidly attributable to inner paperwork. The actual fact [that] points stay unresolved is a testomony so far. This breach has price our members a major quantity of time and money and it’s nonetheless not resolved months later.”
This comes after quite a few different lawsuits have already been filed for the Change Healthcare assault.
Change Healthcare helps pharmacies and suppliers course of claims. It processes 15 billion transactions yearly, in keeping with the grievance. In February, it was introduced that ransomware group Blackcat gained entry to Change’s servers, resulting in community outages that affected hundreds of thousands of sufferers and suppliers nationwide. Blackcat obtained delicate data, together with social safety numbers, driver’s licenses, well being data and claims and fee data.
To cease the assault from getting worse, the defendants took some Change methods offline, together with the broadly used Change Healthcare Platform, which is a claims processing service.
“Reliance on Defendants’ Change Platform has created a single level of failure within the U.S. well being system,” the grievance said. “With out Defendants’ Change Platform, the healthcare trade is immobilized. Sufferers had been caught in prescription purgatory with out entry to their important medicines. That is particularly disruptive to aged sufferers who’ve a hard and fast revenue and can’t afford medicines with out insurance coverage, in addition to people with continual sicknesses who face life-threatening signs with out their treatment. Defendants’ community outage of the Change Platform jeopardized the well being of hundreds of thousands of People.”
Suppliers had been additionally severely compromised by the hack, and plenty of are nonetheless experiencing challenges in verifying affected person eligibility and protection, submitting claims and billing sufferers. Small and mid-sized practices are particularly struggling, in keeping with the grievance.
“For over 4 months (and counting), these healthcare practices have obtained little, if any, reimbursement from insurers for affected person visits,” the grievance mentioned. “With out full reimbursement, small and mid-sized practices can’t afford worker payroll, lease/mortgage, and medical provides.”
UnitedHealth Group additionally hasn’t given suppliers “satisfactory steering,” the plaintiffs argued. Suppliers must notify their sufferers of non-public data that has been affected by the info breach and in sure instances, must report the breach to the federal authorities. However UnitedHealth Group hasn’t “supplied satisfactory accounts concerning the Knowledge Breach that may enable healthcare suppliers to fulfill their obligations,” the grievance alleged.
As a result of these points, the plaintiffs made a number of requests for reduction, together with that the courtroom “prohibit and stop Defendants from persevering with to interact within the illegal acts, omissions, and practices described herein.” In addition they requested the courtroom to award them “compensatory, consequential, and common damages, together with nominal damages as applicable, for every depend as allowed by legislation in an quantity to be decided at trial.”
UnitedHealth Group didn’t return a request for remark.
Picture: AndreyPopov, Getty Pictures
