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When Powell Valley Healthcare was first reconnected with Change Healthcare, the company that handles crucial parts of the payment process for the hospital, it had $10 million in pending claims, CFO …
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When Powell Valley Healthcare was first reconnected with Change Healthcare, the company that handles crucial parts of the payment process for the hospital, it had $10 million in pending claims, CFO Coby La Blue told board members Monday.
Since then, the financial situation has improved for the hospital after dropping to just 21.8 days cash on hand at the end of April.
La Blue said as of May 20 cash on hand was 32.3 days, meaning the hospital once again had at least a month in reserves to pay for hospital operations.
"That's obviously not where I want to be, goal is 60," she said. "Now that we're starting to get our cash coming back in, we'll continue working on that going forward. We are making substantial progress. I think we're moving in a very positive direction."
The cyberattack against Change Healthcare that began on Feb. 21 is the most serious incident of its kind leveled against a U.S. health care organization, according to a report by American Hospital Association.
Billings Clinic IT staff immediately disconnected all systems connected with Change Healthcare as soon as they heard about the attack.
On May 1, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) questioned UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty on the cyberattack, according to a press release. Specifically, Barrasso reported the attack’s impact on Wyoming’s local hospitals and pressed Witty on whether Change Healthcare is addressing claim processing issues, improving security measures with multi-factor authentication, and protecting small medical practices from devastating financial liability in the future during a congressional hearing.
Powell Valley Healthcare CEO Joy Coulston said she didn’t know if the comments by Barrasso would lead to any changes, but she said he did raise some issues about how cybersecurity operations are handled with hospitals.
According to Change Healthcare, the company processes 15 billion health care transactions annually and touches one in every three patient records. These transactions include a range of services that directly affect patient care, including eligibility verifications and pharmacy operations, as well as claims transmittals and payment. All of these have been disrupted to varying degrees over the past several days and the full impact is still not known.
