Optum Offers Temporary Funding Assistance For Change Healthcare Customers

UPDATE 3/5/2024 - This article has been updated to include excerpts from a letter that the AHA sent to UnitedHealth Group. 

Optum has launched a temporary funding assistance program to help organizations manage short-term cash flow needs as the Change Healthcare cyberattack continues to impact providers nationwide.

The funding assistance program, offered through Optum Financial Services, enables providers whose payment distribution has been impacted to receive short-term temporary funding assistance.

“Once standard payment operations resume, the funds will simply need to be repaid,” Optum explained. “We have been able to estimate your average weekly payments, which will be the basis for the support. Our plan is to take this week by week with people re-upping for funding each week as needs persist.”

Eligibility for providers who receive payments from payers that were processed by Change Healthcare will be determined based on prior claims volume. Customers can determine eligibility and funding amount by registering for the program via their Optum Pay accounts.

In addition to offering financial assistance, Optum recently completed setting up a new instance of Change Healthcare’s Rx ePrescribing service. As of March 1st, this new service is available for script routing.

But these workarounds are not enough to ease the burden that this cyberattack has placed on healthcare providers, industry groups have argued.

In a March 4th letter to Congress, the American Hospital Association (AHA) suggested that Optum’s temporary funding assistance program “will not come close to meeting the needs of our members as they struggle to meet the financial demands of payroll, supplies and bond covenant requirements, among others.”

The AHA suggested that UnitedHealth Group’s efforts so far have fallen short in providing meaningful mitigations.

“Workarounds to address prior authorization, as well as claims processing and payment are not universally available and, when they are, can be expensive, time consuming and inefficient to implement,” the AHA noted.

“For example, manually typing claims into unique payer portals or sending by fax machine requires additional hours and labor costs, and switching revenue cycle vendors requires hospitals and health systems to pay new vendor fees and can take months to implement properly.”

The AHA urged Congress to take action to assist the healthcare sector during this time as the incident enters its 13th day of disruptions. The group said it chose to escalate the issue to Congress since its February 26th letter to HHS had not received a formal response.

In its letter, the AHA urged Congress to press HHS to take action by directing the Medicare Administrative Contractors to expedite the review and approval of hospital requests for Medicare advanced payments.

Additionally, the AHA encouraged Congress to get HHS to issue guidance to all payers to outline expectations that these payers will waive timely claim filing requirements, not deny claims due to lack of authorization, and consider other actions to support providers.

The AHA also urged Congress to use its power to ensure that UnitedHealth Group takes steps to remedy the situation by providing financial assistance and steady communication.

“This incident demands a whole of government response,” the AHA added.

“We therefore urge Congress to consider any statutory limitations that may exist for any federal agencies that can assist hospitals at this critical moment. If such limitations exist, the Executive Branch may be unable to provide solutions to ensure our nation’s provider network remains solvent and serves patients.”

In addition to pressing Congress and HHS to take action, the AHA called on UnitedHealth Group to offer more comprehensive assistance to Change Healthcare customers.

"Regrettably, the Temporary Funding Assistance Program that your company announced on Friday is not even a band-aid on the payment problems you identify," the AHA stated in a letter to Dirk McMahon, president and chief operating officer of UnitedHealth Group. 

"We need real solutions — not programs that sound good when they are announced but are fundamentally inadequate when you read the fine print."

The AHA poked holes in the funding assistance program, noting that the contract for the program requires repayments of loans within five days of receiving notice and allows Optum Financial Services to recoup funds "immediately and without prior notice."

"UnitedHealth Group, which is a Fortune 5 company that brought in more than $370 billion in revenue and $22 billion in profit in 2023, can — and should — be doing more to address the far-reaching consequences that result from Change Healthcare’s inability to provide these essential hospital revenue cycle functions nearly two weeks after the attack," the AHA reasoned.