Biden officials press health care giant to get emergency funding flowing to providers following cyberattack

By Sean Lyngaas, CNN

(CNN) — Senior Biden administration officials on Tuesday pressed the CEO of health care giant UnitedHealth Group and other health care firms to do more to get vital payments flowing to health care providers three weeks after a cyberattack crippled those payment systems, sources familiar with the meeting told CNN.

The meeting featured Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, senior White House officials, and Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, whose subsidiary Change Healthcare was hit by a cyberattack last month, the sources said.

The US officials urged Witty and other health care executives in the room to take more steps to get emergency funding flowing to cash-strapped health practices, some of which have told CNN that they are running out of money because of the cyberattack and that they could be forced to close.

Change Healthcare processes about 15 billion transactions annually and serves thousands of hospitals, insurers and pharmacies nationwide. The ransomware attack prevented some insurance payments on prescription drugs from processing, leaving many care providers footing the bill up front and hoping to get reimbursed.
Some health care providers have lost more than $100 million per day because of the outage, one industry analyst previously told CNN.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson had no immediate comment.

CNN has requested comment from the Department of Health and Human Services and UnitedHealthGroup on the meeting.

The Washington Post first reported on the meeting.

Change Healthcare announced plans last week to have its electronic payment platform back online by March 15 and its network for submitting claims restored the following week.

But the financial wreckage caused by the cyberattack will take a lot longer to clean up, health providers and analysts say.

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