MN Departments of Commerce, Health Urge Health Plans to Act in Wake of Cyberattack

March 21, 2024

In a joint memo sent March 12, the commissioners of the Minnesota Department of Commerce and Minnesota Department of Health urged health plans to take several actions in response to the Change Healthcare cyberattack. 

The suggested actions include: 

• Exercise the maximum allowable flexibility to contracted providers in performing claims submission, appeals, claims editing, prior authorization, reimbursement, or other functions impacted by the Change Healthcare cyberattack. This should include consideration of waiving prior authorization requirements in certain situations where the provider and carrier are unable to share necessary information. 

• Develop and publish in a prominent place on their website plain-language, public-facing information about the potential impacts of the Change Healthcare cyberattack on enrollees and on providers, including but not limited to information about potential delays in services or billing and what enrollees should do if they experience a delay in care, and information for providers about alternative approaches or workarounds for impacted services and how to access them. 

• Maintain regular and direct communication with all contracted providers about alternative approaches or workarounds that are in place for claims submission, appeals, claims editing, prior authorization, reimbursement, and other services performed by Change Healthcare, and ensure that processes are in place for providers to get assistance in using these alternative approaches. 

• Continue to meet statutory requirements for prompt payment of claims submitted by providers, and, if necessary, work with impacted providers to ensure that the process for extending statutory claims-submissions timelines is as administratively simple as possible. 

• As an alternative, or in addition to, the financial assistance program announced by Change Healthcare, carriers should consider their ability to offer financial assistance or financial advances to impacted providers during the period when billing and reimbursement processes are delayed or unavailable. 

The departments sent this memo less than four days after the federal Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Labor distributed a press release urging health plans across the country to take similar measures.  

The MMA will continue to monitor updates on the Change Healthcare cyber outage and inform its members of support resources. For more information, contact Adrian Uphoff, health policy analyst.