On February 21, 2024, Change Healthcare—a healthcare technology company owned by UnitedHealth Group—issued a statement that it had been impacted by a ransomware attack. According to Change Healthcare, a “threat actor” gained access to its system. As a result of this cyberattack, Change Healthcare’s services have been shut down.
To provide perspective on the magnitude of this attack and its impact, Change Healthcare serves as the largest healthcare payment system in the U.S. Change Healthcare reportedly manages approximately 15 billion clinical, financial, and operational transactions per year. Specifically, it manages healthcare technology pipelines that process insurance claims and billing. For those reasons, American Hospital Association (AHA) has characterized this attack as “the most significant and consequential incident of its kind against the U.S. healthcare system in history.”
