MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – A cyberattack has left hundreds of thousands of Vermonters without access to medication. About 200,000 Medicaid patients in Vermont face problems getting their medications from pharmacies, and state leaders are working to improve the situation.
A company that processes state Medicaid payments to pharmacies suffered a cyberattack last week and has since been taken offline, impacting patients across the country.
A massive healthcare cyberattack is causing headaches and heartache for Vermonters.
Charity Downs and her 23-year-old son Jacob live in Highgate. Jacob suffers from grand mal seizures and takes medication paid for through the state’s Medicaid program, which is designed for elderly and low-income Vermonters.
“He hates having seizures, so I would go to the ends of the earth to make sure he doesn’t have a seizure,” Downs said.
But last Thursday, they were turned away by a local pharmacy. The private company responsible for processing state Medicaid payments to pharmacies was offline. Downs paid out of pocket.
“We had to dip into my son’s savings. Three pills cost nearly $150,” she said.
Change Healthcare, which manages pharmacy payments for all 200,000 Vermont Medicaid patients, was also affected. Change disconnected the system over the weekend.
“Unfortunately, the impact is not just limited to Vermont Medicaid members and providers. As we understand, this impact is impacting pharmacy services across the country,” Vermont Health said. said Alex McCracken of the Access Bureau.
The Office of Health Access wants to work with pharmacies to help patients get their medicines.
If a drug is covered by the state, it is illegal for pharmacies to charge Medicaid patients co-pays.
“We are extending our flexibility and creativity to ensure that in every case possible, people can access their medicines through pharmacies and not have to pay out of pocket to do so,” McCracken said.
Officials also emphasized that state data was not affected. However, it is unclear whether patient identity data through Change Healthcare was compromised.
Change Healthcare’s parent company, Optum, said in a statement Monday that it is working on multiple approaches to restore service. “We are working on multiple approaches to restore the affected environment, and we do not intend to take shortcuts or take additional risks as we bring systems back online.”
While Change is working to get the system back up and running, Downes hopes the state has a backup system in place and considers the issue to be a matter of life and death.
“That’s my son,” she said. “If it were me, yeah. But this is my son and I can’t forgive him, and every time you have a seizure, you’re more likely to die, and I don’t want him to die.” You can’t do that to me.”
At this time, there is no timeline for when Change Healthcare will have its systems back up and running.
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