Major Healthcare IT Attack Proves Nothing Is Perfect

If you haven't heard the news by now, you should probably know that a substantial ransomware attack against one of the nation's leading healthcare IT providers has created a whole lot of headaches for hospitals, clinics, doctor's offices, and even patients. The attack is further evidence that nothing is perfect. Not even the most secure networks are 100% impervious to hacking.

 

What makes this particular attack so devastating is its size and scale. The target, Change Healthcare, is one of the largest companies in its business. It has an incredibly extensive nationwide reach. The attack happened in late February, and we still don't know (at the time of this writing) just how deeply the damage runs.

 

As a ransomware attack, it has rendered multiple aspects of Change Healthcare's network unusable. Information has been encrypted and locked, held for bounty until Change Healthcare pays a ransom. Reports indicate they have no plans to do any such thing. Instead, they have backup systems and workarounds that facilitate a full restoration of their system. And still, that will take time.

 

As a company that specializes in medical coding and billing, we were curious to know how the attack affected our customers. News reports suggest that medical billing is still proving difficult as billers and coders alike are struggling to access data. However, coding itself should not be an issue.

 

Medical coders can continue doing what they do even if their respective billing departments cannot file claims and follow up on them. Coding is done locally for the most part. This is to say that accurate coding does not necessarily rely on connecting to an external network or cloud.

 

We suspect the disruptions to medical coding and billing will be inconvenient, at best. On the other hand, patients seem to be bearing the brunt of the attack. Their two big challenges are filling prescriptions and making sure they are not victimized by identity theft.

 

In the short term, patients are most challenged when it comes time to have a prescription fulfilled. Not having access to network data eliminates a pharmacy's ability to rely on electronic health records and other digital tools for doing what they do. But news reports say most pharmacies are working around the problem by reverting to the old-fashioned method of writing things down on paper.

 

Creating paper records will get pharmacies by for the time being. Patience can still get their prescriptions even if there is a slight delay. But when all of this is over, all that data recorded on paper will have to be entered into the computer system. It is going to mean a lot of work for a lot of people.

 

The bigger patient concern is the potential for identity theft. Whether Change Healthcare pays the ransom or not, those responsible for the attack have access to sensitive information. In fact, healthcare is a primary target for hackers because the industry collects and stores so much historical data on patients.

 

If you are employed as a medical coder or biller, there is little you can do to help get things back to normal. But you can continue doing what you do to the best of your ability. We encourage you to be at the top of your game. Do the best that you can so your employer doesn't have yet another thing to worry about.

 

In the meantime, no computer network or cloud environment is perfect. None are completely impervious to attack. It is the world we live in.