UnitedHealth Group, which owns Change Healthcare, began testing systems this week for submitting claims. But the timeline for when it will be fully operational again is unclear. And processing claims that have been sitting around for a month will take time.

“I do worry that as big health care organizations come back online that people will stop caring as much about the impact on everybody who is left,” said Julia Skapik, medical director for informatics at the National Association of Community Health Centers.

While the Biden administration this week asked insurers to target advance payments to small, rural and safety-net health care providers facing cash flow issues, Skapik said that directive should have come earlier.

The federal government has been criticized for its slow response to the attack. While it has allowed providers to submit requests for advance Medicare fee-for-service payments, it can only encourage the private industry to do the same. That includes Medicare Advantage plans, which cover half of Medicare beneficiaries, and Medicaid Managed Care plans, which cover about 90% of Medicaid beneficiaries.

It’s not yet clear how successful the government’s request has been. Aside from UnitedHealth Group, which said it has directed $2 billion to providers, insurers have not publicly released information about how much financial assistance they have sent out.

Alliance of Community Health Plans, Association for Community Affiliated Plans, America’s Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association wrote in a letter to Biden administration officials this week that they commit to “providing targeted advance payments to impacted providers in need.” They also wrote that they will engage in “proactive and data-driven outreach” to remaining providers facing operational challenges with claims processing or reimbursement and support providers switching to alternative services.

Blue Cross Blue Shield also told CQ Roll Call it is advancing payments to in-network providers.

In a separate letter, Medicaid Health Plans of America, which represents Medicaid managed care plans, also said its members are “committed to making targeted advance payments.” But those payments will need to be repaid and are only intended to make up for unpaid claims, not to cover costs associated with the fallout from the hack, like interest charges associated with taking out loans.

“There’s been no effort to talk about how to relieve us from those costs,” Hilliard said.

Unpaid claims

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