03/19/2024    Kristin Happel

Was your practice affected by the recent Change Healthcare cyberattack?

Once again, I am astonished and disheartened by
the lack of preparedness on the part of providers
to deal with a crisis involving their income. Did
anyone not learn anything from the COVID shutdown
in 2020? As a rule of thumb, each practice should
have 3 months or more of income set aside in order
to deal with any adversity that may befall a
practice. Such as a pandemic, or a cyberattack on
their clearinghouse, or anything else that can be
imagined. This is the same financial advice given
to anyone who has job they count on to pay their
living expenses. I have 3 or more months of income
in savings. I know I do, and I am not a doctor.

I know the running "joke" is doctors make the
worst business owners, but this is ridiculous, in
my opinion. If you own a practice, you better make
sure you are a good business owner, or you don't
have any business owning a practice. I have been
reading in the news recently that various
practices are going to have to close down/let
staff go, because of the Change Healthcare
cyberattack. In particular, CNN had an article
where a podiatry practice in PA was mentioned as
being in serious trouble. Why? They clearly
weren't prepared. The difference between the
Change Healthcare cyberattack and the COVID
shutdown is that the ability to see patients has
not been affected with the Change Healthcare
situation, so income is still being generated. The
easy solution was/is to just send claims in on
paper, until the clearinghouse is up and running
again.

Medicare has made it clear they will accept paper
claims, no waiver needed. How many practices
actually did that within one week of Change being
shut down? (If I had to guess, the practice in PA
did not). Yes, it will take longer to get paid
this way, but you are still getting paid if you
realized pretty quickly that the lack of updates
from Change Healthcare was any indication that
they were having serious trouble dealing with the
cyberattack. My point here is that if YOU have one
of the practices that is in trouble right now
because of the Change Healthcare situation, you
need to ask yourself why that is, and be more
prepared financially for the future. If COVID
taught you nothing, maybe this will. Get money
into savings to deal with crises like this, and do
it now. Your hard working staff will thank you for
not being let go because you weren't prepared.

Kristin Happel, Podiatry Biller, Chicago, IL

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