UnitedHealth is now asking doctors to repay the loans it gave out following major hack

• Change Healthcare suffered a huge cyberattack in 2024
• Disruptions from that attack cost organizations millions
• The firm is now chasing repayment of loans to cover losses from these disruptions

UnitedHealth Group is “aggressively” going after small healthcare organizations that borrowed money following a huge cyberattack on its subsidy Change Healthcare.

The attack is said to have affected almost 190 million Americans, and was the largest US healthcare data breach ever, and was incredibly disruptive, with systems only fully restored 9 months later, costing over $2 billion to recover from.

After the attack, interest-free loans were offered by Change to help medical practices with short-term cash flow needs. The firm is now demanding these funds be “immediately” repaid, with some organizations asked to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few days.

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Lost revenue

Optum, UnitedHealth’s financial arm, has now confirmed it will withhold separate funds until these loans are repaid.

Doctors with their own private practices used these loans to cover losses from the disruption following the cyber incident, which cost some hundreds of thousands - and some reportedly used personal savings to keep practices afloat.

It’s worth noting UnitedHealth has a net worth of over $470 billion (at the time of writing), and CEO Andrew Witty made over $23 million in compensation in 2023.

Optum has collected over $4.5 billion of the $9 billion debt, but since many practices lost so much in downtime thanks to the disruption, many will struggle to repay the money owed in the just 5 day timeframe Optum have imposed, with one doctor describing it as a “shakedown.”

UnitedHealth paid the ransomware attackers $22 million in cryptocurrency to recover its data - but the operation was still shut down in its entirety, and Change never got its data back. Medical data is, of course, extremely sensitive, and put anyone exposed at risk of identity theft or fraud.

Via CNBC

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