Change Healthcare is beginning to notify hospitals, insurers and other customers that they may have had patient information exposed in a massive cyber attack.
The company also said Thursday that it expects to begin notifying individuals or patients in late July.
Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group, provides technology used to submit and process billions of insurance claims per year. Hackers gained access to its system in February and unleashed a ransomware attack that encrypted and froze much of it.
The attack triggered a disruption in payment and claims processing across the country, overwhelming medical practices and healthcare systems by interfering with their ability to file claims and receive payments.
The change says names, addresses, health insurance information and personal information such as Social Security numbers may have been exposed in attack. The company is still investigating.
The company said Thursday that it has reviewed more than 90% of the affected files and has seen no signs that medical records or complete medical histories have been collected.
After the attack, UnitedHealth paid a $22 million ransom in bitcoin, CEO Andrew Witty said.
Witty said during Congressional hearings last month that all of the company’s core systems, including claims payment and pharmacy processing, were functional.
The company has offered to pay for two years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection for people concerned that their information may have been exposed in the attack.
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