(WXYZ) — Many patients across the country need help with unfilled prescriptions.
It all stems from a cyber attack on Change Healthcare, a giant US healthcare technology company that processes 14 billion e-prescriptions a year.
The disruption began on February 21st and has affected thousands of patients here in Michigan.
Dr Aman Upadhyay runs a pain management clinic in Waterford. For most of his patients, medication is essential.
“Many of our patients are elderly and have many comorbidities, and uncontrolled pain can affect their breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure in many different ways.” said Dr. Upadhyay of the Pain Clinic. Michigan.
But over the past two weeks, Upadhyay’s patients have suffered after hackers destroyed Change Healthcare’s electronic portal.
“250 of my patients couldn’t get their prescriptions written, and they need paper prescriptions. And this is on top of a normal day when we see patients. So these patients just come in and say, “I can’t get my prescription.” Here’s my prescription,” Dr. Upadhyay said.
In recent years, healthcare providers have been required to transition to electronic prescription portals. That’s why many clinicians no longer have paper prescriptions, Dr. Upadhyay says. Fortunately, Dr. Upadhyay was able to dig up some of the old ones. However, Dr Upadhyay says the fact that people were not informed about the power outage also contributed to the confusion.
“In the last week alone, we’ve lost a referral provider. We’ve lost a family physician’s office, because they’ve lost our… I thought it was my fault,” Dr. Upadhyay said.
As of today, the portal is still down. I called Change Healthcare multiple times and received an automated message that said, “Thank you for calling Change Healthcare. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are unable to answer your call. Thank you for calling.” It arrived many times.
7 Action News also reached out to United Health Group, which owns Change Healthcare. But still no reply.
To get a better perspective and speak with those affected by the outage, the 7 Action News team visited I-Pharmacy in Livonia. Pharmacist Rudy Najam then pointed out another problem.
“If you look now to qualify a patient, you can’t find it. Basically, you can’t really process it right now. You can’t look up insurance information, you can’t claim rebates,” Najam said. .
This means that even if a prescription is delivered, pharmacies cannot link it to benefits, resulting in patients paying more out-of-pocket.
“Let’s look here. The total is 834.52. This is what the insurance paid. The patient paid 100. Now the patient had to pay 250. So basically The amount coming in is the same, but the patient rebate is gone,” Najam said.
Najam said at least 300 patients have been affected so far. You’ll either have to pay a higher fee or wait until the system comes back online.
“If we extend this for another two weeks or another month, there will be a lot of logistical problems. And no one is getting paid. Pharmacies are not getting paid, health workers are not getting paid,” Najam said. said.
The outage is occurring only with the Change Healthcare e-prescription portal, and a statement on the company’s website says it is working to resolve the issue. But still, there is no clear indication as to when it will come back online.
