Cyberattack aftermath: Congress members press HHS, CMS for answers

On March 19, U.S. Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, MD, R-Iowa, and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., along with 94 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives, sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra about the challenges physicians and patients are experiencing due to the Change Healthcare Cyberattack. In addition to highlighting medical practices’ inability to file claims and receive payment, the letter urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to clarify why it issued such stringent repayment terms for advance payments on March 9. The letter also pressed HHS for answers about how it plans to protect patients from the negative impact of their private health information being inappropriately disclosed to malicious actors.

The AMA sent a letter to the National Association of Medicaid Directors, asking the organization to urge its members to take immediate to assist physician practices affected by the Change Healthcare cybersecurity breach and resulting service outage, including taking advantage of flexibilities provided by CMS related to state plan amendments to provide advance payments to physicians under Medicaid. For more information, visit the AMA’s Change Healthcare cyber outage resource page.