Yellowhawk reports a cyber threat on a vendor
By Terry Murry on Wednesday, February 28th, 2024 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
MISSION – (News release from Yellowhawk) Due to a nationwide cyber threat, Yellowhawk Tribal Health Center (Yellowhawk) Pharmacy and billing services are currently impacted by the attack on our claims processing vendor, Change Healthcare.
Change Healthcare offers tools for payment and revenue cycle management, its system outages have disrupted operations in pharmacies and health systems across the country. Change Healthcare’s systems have been down since the cyber-threat actor gained access to its network last week. Parent company UnitedHealthGroup said to CNBC that most U.S. pharmacies have set up electronic workarounds to mitigate the impact.
Yellowhawk continues to release prescriptions to our patients even though we haven’t been able to confirm payment from insurance companies. As of February 27, Yellowhawk has 1,171 claims waiting to be processed from the Pharmacy billing package. Unfortunately, Yellowhawk Pharmacy software (RPMS) does not currently accept digital prescriptions, meaning, we do not have a “workaround” like many pharmacies as we can only accept faxed or physical prescriptions. This issue has mostly impacted Yellowhawk patients trying to fill prescriptions at pharmacies outside of Yellowhawk.
Currently, patients at outside pharmacies are being asked to pay out of pocket until this issue gets resolved. It is important to know that Yellowhawk Purchased Referred Care (PRC) are Federal funds and we are not able to reimburse patients directly. If the patient must pay out of pocket, we ask that they bring the original receipt to Yellowhawk and we will make a copy (patient keeps original). Receipts an be brought to our business office, PRC team, or Eligibility Coordinators.
Once the issue is resolved Yellowhawk should be able to have the outside pharmacy rebill and issue the patient a refund. If at all possible, patients should get prescriptions filled at Yellowhawk first. Patients should speak with our pharmacy to check availability at 541.240.8691.
