Posted on 03/10/2024 8:20:12 AM PDT by dynachrome
For more than two weeks, a cyberattack has disrupted business at health care providers across the United States, forcing small clinics to scramble to stay in business and exposing the fragility of the billing system that underpins American health care.
“We’re hemorrhaging money,” said Catherine Reinheimer, practice manager at the Foot and Ankle Specialty Center in the suburbs of Philadelphia. “This will probably be the last week that we can keep everybody on full-time without having to do something,” she told CNN. The center is considering taking out a loan to keep the lights on.
The cyberattack disrupted the computer networks of Change Healthcare, which serves thousands of hospitals, insurers and pharmacies nationwide. It prevented some insurance payments on prescription drugs from processing, leaving many care providers footing the bill up front and hoping to get reimbursed.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
You make a very profound point. In the drive for efficiency, cost cutting and profits its easy to dismiss and/or overlook vulnerabilities.
“The Change Healthcare Platform is one of the largest health information exchange (HIE) platforms in the U.S. The company manages 15 billion claims a year, totaling over $1.5 trillion.”
“BlackCat/ALPHV operates with a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model. In the RaaS approach, BlackCat/ALPHV enables affiliates to attack victims with its ransomware code, who are then paid a share of any ransomware payment.”
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/The-Change-Healthcare-attack-Explaining-how-it-happened
with some of the Democrats’ crony friends cashing in thereby
************
They always do cash in on all the programs and policies. Its why the Dems fight so hard to maintain control and keep the government spending machine in high gear. It benefits THEM.
Wait til they shut down the EBT network
> NOTHING digital is 100 % secure.
Including the hacker group. Why are they still in business?
“On March 1, Optum launched a Temporary Funding Assistance Program to help bridge the gap in short-term cash flow needs for providers who received payments from payers that were processed by Change Healthcare.
“UnitedHealthcare will provide further funding solutions for its provider partners. This applies to medical, dental and vision providers and will involve advancing funds each week representing the difference between their historical payment levels and the payment levels post-attack. Advances will not need to be repaid until claims flows have fully resumed. Providers must complete a one-time registration to access funding.
“We urge all payers to do the same as this is the fastest, most efficient way to address provider short-term cash flow needs.”
“For those who receive funding support, there are no fees, interest or other associated costs with the assistance. For repayment, providers will receive an invoice once standard payment operations resume and will have 30 days to return the funds. These terms now apply to both the original and expanded funding programs.”
“Temporary funding support FAQ”
And further... "They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
"However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
From Washington's 1796 farewell.
This is outside my area of expertise, but it gives an indication of how much effort and skill is required to secure systems:
https://www.cisa.gov/stopransomware/ransomware-guide
It’s extremely hard to catch really smart hackers.
In this particular case and other corporate hacking events, more time than not the source of the hack is internal not some super geek in a basement somewhere around the world.
It’s extremely hard to catch really smart hackers.
In this particular case and other corporate hacking events, more time than not the source of the hack is internal not some super geek in a basement somewhere around the world.
Pure insightful brilliance by Washington. (Its sad that the DC crowd has sullied his great name and what he stood for; they have turned ‘Washington’ into a synonym for waste, inefficiency and abuse).
I’m going to read this a couple more times today, just to let those wise words sink in. Like listening again and again to great music.
Thanks for sharing.
We’ve really got to figure out how to do things again without every little thing being accessible on the world wide web and / or have a backup systems / plans in place.
Like oil pipelines that were shut down by a cyber attack that were able to run perfectly fine before they were ever hooked up to internet linked computers...but now could not be turned back on without it.
We are going to really regret this severely one day if we don’t.
This hacking has disrupted ppharmacies from being able tp bill medicare and part D which covers medicines and medical equipment sich as that needed to manage diabetes.
When I went to pick up test strips the other day, they wanted me to pay out of pocket. The payment was more than I have in the bank and I still need to get food.
I can only tell you what I am experiencing personally which is reality. I’ve been able to receive meds but those are delayed in some instances. Without them, I become mortally injured due to the types of health issues that I have. For me it’s not a potential, it’s here and now.
Why? Hackers operate in the digital domain and supposedly, the digital domain is impossible to secure.
It looks like the software manufacturer or the billing service provider might be financially liable for the vulnerability to be hacked.
Furthermore, if the problem is insiders, then that problem is not unique to the digital domain. My point is that digital systems are not impossible to secure. Certainly not any more than old technology. Does anyone think paper billing is impossible to attack? Fax is secure?
Well they vacuum money any other time.
The software was likely developed in house, so do you want to bankrupt the victim?
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