Minneapolis therapy clinic sues over cyberattack at UnitedHealth subsidiary

pA Minneapolis clinic is the latest to sue a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary over the fallout from its February cyberattackppTwin Cities Counseling says it hasnt been able to submit payment claims for more than 100 appointments resulting in thousands of dollars in missing reimbursements since UnitedHealth Group took down the claims processing system at its Change Healthcare division to contain the IT threatppBecause of the billing mess Twin Cities Counseling couldnt cover its payroll in March the lawsuit says Additionally recently hired therapy providers at the clinic havent been able to transition their patients to the practiceppThe complaint which was filed Wednesday as a class action lawsuit in the US District Court for Minnesota says the Change Healthcare outage has meant that many health care providers across the country have lost their primary and in some cases their only system for obtaining payments from health insurersppTwin Cities Counseling LLC can no longer verify prospective clients insurance benefits states the lawsuit which only names Change Healthcare as a defendant Without access to the Change platform plaintiff has no way of knowing if a referralss insurance is active what the plans copayment and deductible amounts are or even whether the clinics providers are in network for the planppThis lack of information has forced plaintiff to choose between taking on patients blindly with the risk of either foregoing future payment or strapping the patient with the bill or declining referrals and appointment requests to avoid that risk according to the complaint Plaintiff has chosen the latter option out of an abundance of caution and thus has lost valuable new business due to the data breachppResponding to the lawsuit Minnetonkabased UnitedHealth Group said Thursday in a statement We are focused on the investigation and recovery of Change Healthcares operationsppEarlier this month the company asked that lawsuits related to the cyberattack be consolidated at a federal court in Nashville where Change Healthcare is based At the time UnitedHealth Group said 24 class action lawsuits related to the disruption had been filed between March 1 and April 2ppChange took prompt action to contain the incident and defendants have invested extraordinary efforts to avoid harmful effects to individuals providers and payers as a result of the incident the company said in a court filing earlier this month Numerous Change systems are back online and others will be restored in the coming days and weeksppAfter disclosing the cyberattack in late February UnitedHealth Group was hit in early March by federal class action lawsuits filed in Minnesota by patients struggling to obtain medications at pharmacies because of the IT system shutdownppLawsuits claim that Change Healthcare is responsible because it failed to implement reasonable security procedures to prevent the cyberattackppMental health providers have been among those most vocal in Minnesota talking about disruptions to their businesses because several clinics used an electronic health record called TherapyNotes that relied heavily on the data clearinghouse at Change HealthcareppTwin Cities Counseling uses TherapyNotes as well the lawsuit says The practice and owner Nick Ross have not received payments for services provided since the cyberattack according to the complaint and 16 claims that were in process at the time totaling just over 3500 are now in limboppPlaintiff cannot submit them to a new clearinghouse as doing so would risk doublebilling insurers yet Change cannot process the claims the complaint states As a result of these claims being submitted but not paid they appear on patients account portals as outstanding paymentsppAfter one patient paid the full balance shown in her account Mr Ross spent time and effort issuing the patient a full refund and explaining to other patients that they do not need to pay these balances even though they appear on their accountsppIn February the practice hired two additional providers who collectively see nearly 40 patients per week But because they cant bill for clients through the new practice they have continued to see their clients through other service providers causing Twin Cities Counseling LLC to lose revenueppTherapyNotes is in the process of switching to a new clearinghouse the lawsuit says That means the clinic will need to spend time learning and implementing the new system and reenrolling with payers while not receiving paymentppPlaintiff has struggled to keep its accounting practices intact in light of Changes failures the lawsuit says Plaintiff is unable to assign payments to specific clients track client personal balances in real time and fears tax ramifications because of the accounting difficulties that would not have resulted but for the data breachppStar Tribune staff writer Mike Hughlett contributed to this storyppChristopher Snowbeck covers health insurers including Minnetonkabased UnitedHealth Group and the business of running hospitals and clinics pp 2024 StarTribune All rights reservedp