Doctors hit by cyberattack seek legal action against UnitedHealth

Editor's Note

Doctors are urging the American Medical Association (AMA) to take legal action or otherwise help recoup their losses from the February 21 Cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a division of United HealthGroup. Forbes reported the news June 3.

The article cites a a resolution before the AMA’s reference committee on amendments to the group’s constitution and bylaws, which reads: “Optum is the largest employer of physicians and has acquired practices when the ransomware disruption made those practices unable to survive without acquisition. Even the practices that survive will have ongoing damages including but not limited to denials related to giving therapy when it was impossible to obtain prior authorization, from using lines of credit and having to pay interest, from having billing departments and others work overtime to submit claims, to losing key employees from inability to make payroll.”

As reported by Forbes, the resolution calls specifically for investigating “the possibility of filing a class action lawsuit against Optum, United Health Group and Change Health to recoup the damages from the disruption caused by the breach, and to distribute the unfair enrichment profits made by Optum et al to the practices whose retained payments allowed them to generate interest and investment profits,” the resolution says. AMA members also want the group to investigate the acquisition of practices by Optum in the “aftermath of the breach and determine if the independence of those practices can be resurrected, and if not, if damages are due to the physician owners of the acquired practices.”

UnitedHealth Group had no comment on the proposed AMA resolution, Forbes reports. Last month, the company reported offering assistance in the form of more than $6.5 billion in no-cost loans based on providers’ claims volume. In April, UnitedHealth reported that the cyberattack will cost between $1.35 billion and $1.6 billion in 2024.