My coverage of the change healthcare situation has proved popular. I've been futzing around with TikTok for a while, and not getting very far.
That has sort of kind of changed. Get it? It started with this video, which is just under 10,000 views right now:
However, the video that really got some traction was a 60 second review of what the hell change healthcare does, which is now at around 24,000 views—in the time it took to write that sentence, it got another thousand views!
I don't really understand TikTok. I can tell that there's an algorithm there that serves up content that can go very viral very fast. I don't think I'm a great TikTok star, I don't dance, and I'm not particularly attractive.
I'm not as exciting as most of the challenges on TikTok, but it turns out that UnitedHealthcare’s Optum subdivision’s Change acquisition is something that is generating a lot of buzz.
At some point, somebody is going to get subpoenaed about this, if they haven't been already, and they're gonna have to answer a lot of questions. The only real question I want to see answered is “what does change do?”
I am not sure anyone can meaningfully answer.
By the way, if you're wondering if you're personally impacted by this breach, well you should probably look to your left, and look to your right. One of the three of you has personal health information that is now in the possession of BlackCat cyber criminals, who are extorting United healthcare with a threat that they will disclose your protected health information.
Not saying cyber criminals are great source of information, but here's what they're saying
On Wednesday, the ransomware gang listed Change Healthcare on its leak site and claimed to have stolen massive amounts of data belonging to health insurers, medical providers, and pharmacies including Medicare and Tricare, CVS-CareMark, Health Net, Metlife and Teachers Health Trust.
"Anyone with some decent critical thinking will understand what damage can be done with such intimate data on the affected clients," the criminals threatened, adding that the stolen files number in the "millions" and concern the personal data of active US military members and other patents, medical and dental records, payment information, insurance claims, and more than 3,000 source code files.
I'm not a coding professional, but I think if you have the source code, you could identify any additional means of attacking anything built with that source code?
This is a real problem. Is the protected health information version of Chernobyl. Knock-on effects, toxic waste, and scorched landscape of healthcare infrastructure so lightly protected 6 TB that are in the hands of people who would like to profit in every possible way of that information. Your information. My information.
Our information.
It wasn't protected appropriately, and they had an obligation to do so.
The class action firms have already started by the way! Here is the sponsored ad looking for plaintiffs harmed by delayed Pharmacy!
I am so happy to see that people are beginning to listen to what we, as physicians, have been complaining about for many years now.
People have got to understand that insurance companies are not designed or built for the consumers, nor are they designed and built for physicians. They are designed, as all profit entities are (forget for a moment that some of them claim to be nonprofit), to… You guessed it… Make a profit. I know that most of my colleagues feel that profiting off of the misery and suffering of others is questionable at best.
Up until now, they’ve had very little incentive to protect the data. I think that’s going to change, but a little too little too late?
I just recently received, from our illustrious nonprofit insurance company, UPMC, not a notice that I happen to be prescribing two medication of a similar class (something that they have been doing for a while, thank their little hearts), But actually a requirement for a justification for using two medicines of a similar class (namely, olanzapine and lithium) , in a very complicated patient before they would prior authorize the medication. Ironically, it’s a situation, where I’m actually slowly reducing the medication for a patient that I just inherited. However, since I reduced the olanzapine, they decided they could get a new prior request (which they refused by the way).
This is not only bad for the patients, bad for physicians, bad for pharmacies, it’s just downright Evil.
So keep up the pressure Owen. God knows we need to see some change for the sake of our patients.
Vint Blackburn, MD.
Terrific! I'm gonna share this on Linked in.