By Michael Erman
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. government said on Tuesday that it will accelerate Medicare and Medicaid payments to some hospitals hurt by the hack at UnitedHealth’s technology unit Change Healthcare.
Still, U.S. doctors’ group the American Medical Association (AMA) said the support did not go far enough to protect individual physician practices and urged the Biden administration “to go above and beyond what has been put in place and include financial assistance such as advanced payments for physicians.”
The AMA, the American Hospital Association and other groups had called on the Department of Health and Human Services to make more widespread accelerated payments available – like those issued during the COVID pandemic – amid cash flow concerns caused by an inability to submit claims and receive payments.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the HHS, said hospitals may submit accelerated payment requests to the contractors who oversee their payments for individual consideration.
CMS also encouraged Medicare Advantage plans to offer advance funding to providers most affected by the hack at Change and asked contractors to relax various requirements for compliance with Medicare rules.
American Hospital Association CEO Richard Pollack wrote in a letter sent on Monday that a temporary assistance program put in place by UnitedHealth last week was “not even a band-aid” on the payment problems caused by the hack, and called the terms of the program “shockingly onerous.”
UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the letter from AHA.
The Change hack was perpetrated by hackers who identified themselves as the “Blackcat” ransomware group.
Change said last week it had enabled a new version of its ePrescribing service for all its customers, more than a week after it reported the hack that had a knock-on effect on players across the U.S. healthcare system. Parent company UnitedHealth had announced a program to provide short-term funding for providers unable to receive payment because of the hack.
The CMS asked private companies that provide insurance to older adults through Medicare Advantage plans to remove or relax prior authorization procedures during the system outages. It also urged government-supported children’s insurance and companies that provide Medicaid plans for low-income people to do the same.
The AHA also wrote to congressional leaders on Monday to request assistance for hospitals grappling with hack-related issues.
(Reporting by Michael Erman and Pratik Jain; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Devika Syamnath and Alison Williams)
