Mental-health provider presses Health Alliance for payments [The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.]

Apr. 3—CHAMPAIGN — A mental-health practice is calling on Health Alliance to resume issuing payments for claims following a cyberattack on a clearinghouse used by the insurance company.

Evergreen Coaching & Counseling, which has locations in Champaign, Peoria, Bloomington and Springfield, attempted to stage a protest Monday morning against Health Alliance, which is a part of Carle Health.

Health Alliance officials said in late February that Optum-Change Healthcare, their partner for handling inbound claims, eligibility and claims payments, "experienced a network interruption related to a cybersecurity issue that began February 21, 2024."

Denise Robinson, director of finance and human resources for Evergreen, said that the attack impacted Health Alliance's ability to submit payments to providers. To date, the insurance company owes Evergreen over $100,000, and the figure is growing every day, she said.

"As a small business, this has affected our revenue cycle, and it's starting to affect the ability to pay our employees," Robinson said. "And no one wants to have to make the decision to stop paying employees or stop services that we are rendering to our over 650 clients."

Evergreen had planned to protest at Health Alliance on Monday morning to get the attention of the company's "decision-makers" but was stopped by security, Robinson said. She added that Health Alliance later reached out about working with them to resolve the issue.

Brittany Simon, public relations manager for Carle Health, said Health Alliance has been dedicated to "creating an open dialogue" and working with providers since the cyberattack. She added that while the event continues to limit their ability to process payments to providers, it "does not affect members' access to care."

"We have shared with provider partners that Optum is offering support as they work to resolve the issue with a temporary funding assistance program that providers can apply for to continue the flow of payments during the system disruption; and have made several attempts to offer additional communications with this interim solution for providers with ongoing concerns," Simon said. "We are working to establish alternative vendor systems and are hopeful to resolve the situation in the near future."

"Health Alliance has reached out this morning and their director of provider relations is going to work with us," Robinson said on Monday. "We actually carry health insurance through Health Alliance for our employees, and we got our bill this month and I called and said, 'I'm not sure I can pay this bill if you're not paying us for the clients that we're servicing for you.'"

In discussing her concerns, Robinson said that other insurance companies were able to pivot after the attack and have not missed any payments.

The February cyberattack affected more than just local health providers. According to The New York Times, Change is the nation's largest clearinghouse, and providers were still "unable to collect billions of dollars in payments" as of March 29.

The incident has potential privacy ramifications as well.

"The FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services are investigating the Change hack, including whether patients' records and personal information have been compromised," the Times reported. "Because Change's network acts as a digital switchboard that connects information from a patient's first doctor visit to a diagnosis like cancer or depression and then subsequent treatment to a health insurer for benefits and payments, there is a risk that people's medical history could be exposed for years."

According to a website set up by parent company UnitedHealth Group about its response to the attack, Change is "investigating the extent of the impacted data as quickly as possible."

"We continue to be vigilant, and to date have not seen evidence of any data having been published on the web," company officials wrote. "And we are committed to providing appropriate support to people whose data is found to have been compromised."

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