Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said a hearing into the Change Healthcare cyberattack, which disrupted healthcare payments across the country, will take place soon.
Speaking at the American Hospital Association (AHA) Annual Membership Meeting, Wyden said, “We’re going to be heading toward a hearing on the system of how we announce things, you know, we’ll get into that here very, very soon,” when asked about the breach of cybersecurity.
“It’s clear no one is prepared for this,” Wyden said. “We will have to bring in the best minds and people from a variety of systems.”
The attack on Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, caused healthcare systems and providers to lose revenue due to unpaid claims. Change Healthcare provides technology used to submit and process insurance claims. A recent survey of the AHA found that 80 percent of practices reported experiencing lost revenue due to unpaid claims.
The Washington Post previously reported that the hearing will take place on April 30, with UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty as the only witness. A company spokesperson also confirmed to Politico that Witty would testify. A spokesperson for Senate Finance Democrats would not confirm the hearing when contacted by The Hill for comment.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was also at the AHA meeting on Monday and emphasized the need to build “resilience” in the U.S. healthcare system in light of the cyber attack.
“There’s a time when I don’t think people realize how much clearinghouses have really affected health care in this country,” Brooks-LaSure said. “I think it caught a lot of us off guard. And although this was a specific cyberattack, it could have occurred elsewhere.”
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