WICHITA, Kan. – Pharmacies across the country are facing delays in fulfilling prescription orders due to a cyberattack against a major healthcare technology company, causing disruption for patients and healthcare providers.
Change Healthcare, a company responsible for processing prescription orders and patient payments nationwide, detected a “cyber security issue” affecting its networks on the East Coast early Wednesday morning.
In response to the threat, Change Healthcare disconnected its systems to prevent further impact, stating, “Once we became aware of the outside threat, in the interest of protecting our partners and patients, we took immediate action to disconnect our systems.”
As a result of the attack, pharmacies across the U.S. are experiencing disruptions in processing patients’ orders, leading to a temporary outage at various medical centers and pharmacies. Michigan-based Canadian Lakes Pharmacy noted, “There is a nationwide outage from some of the largest prescription processors in North America.”
The cyber security issue at Change Healthcare has also affected the operations of other companies nationally, causing nationwide outages that are impacting certain business operations, including the ability to process insurance claims for medication purchases.
A spokesperson for pharmacy chain CVS confirmed the outages but stated that there was “no indication that CVS Health’s systems have been compromised.” The impact of the service outage is expected to last until Friday, with no definite timeline for a return to normal service.
The affected healthcare technology company, Change Healthcare, has not yet released detailed information regarding the origin or nature of the cyberattack, raising concerns about the potential broader implications for patients and healthcare providers.