SAPULPA, Okla. — A cyber attack on the nation's largest medical claims processing company is creating chaos for pharmacies and patients.
2 News spoke to a Sapulpa man who says he hasn't received his medicine in weeks because his pharmacy can't fill it.
Right around the time his phone went down with AT&T, David Merrell of Sapulpa says Walgreens let him down. Merrell says he takes anti-rejection drugs for his kidneys, which Medicare pays for. That is until his pharmacist told him Walgreens can't currently communicate with Medicare.
"They're keeping it hush-hush. I called Medicare yesterday to see what the progress was, and they're calling it a catastrophic issue," Merrell said.
According to NBC News, Change Healthcare - the nation's largest medical claims processing company - was involved in a cyber attack detected on February 21. It's a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
Since then, pharmacies, doctors, and patients have dealt with widespread outages with billing and insurance claim systems.
Merrell says he's been forced to cut his medicine in half. By next Tuesday, he runs out.
His options are to stop taking the drug or pay for them out of pocket, which would cost him thousands.
According to UnitedHealth Group's website, electronic prescribing at pharmacies is fully functional as of March 8, electronic payments will be available on March 15, and the claims network is expected to begin testing and reestablish connectivity on March 18 and restore service through that week.
"If they catch the people that are doing the cyber hacking, they should process them for murder. Seriously. Because they're holding the medicine people need as a hostage," Merrell said.
2 News called three pharmacies in the Tulsa area. Despite them not wanting to do an interview, they all confirmed that the cyber hack has been a significant problem.
UnitedHealth Group says that, based on its ongoing investigation, there's no indication that the attack has affected any of its other systems.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- SUBSCRIBE on YouTube
