MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – A cyberattack is affecting the ability of hundreds of thousands of Vermonters to get medication. Around 200,000 Vermont Medicaid patients are running into issues getting their medications from pharmacies, and state leaders are working to try to remedy the situation.
The company that processes state Medicaid payments to pharmacies suffered a cyberattack last week and has since gone offline, affecting patients nationwide.
A massive medical cyberattack is causing headaches and heartbreak for Vermonters.
Charity Downes and her 23-year-old son, Jacob, live in Highgate. Jacob suffers from grand mal seizures and takes a medication paid for through state Medicaid designed for elderly and low-income Vermonters.
“He doesn’t like having seizures and I would go to the end of the earth to make sure he doesn’t have one,” Downes said.
But last Thursday, they were turned away from their local pharmacy. The private company in charge of processing state Medicaid payments to pharmacies was offline. Downes paid out of pocket.
“We had to go into my son’s savings. And for three pills, it was almost $150,” she said.
Change Healthcare, which manages pharmacy payments for all 200,000 Vermont Medicaid patients, was affected. Change disconnected their systems over the weekend.
“Unfortunately, the impact is not just limited to Vermont Medicaid members and providers. The impact is, as we understand it, impacting pharmacy services nationwide,” said Alex McCracken of the Vermont Department of Health Access.
The Department of Health Access is working with pharmacies, hoping to help patients get their medications.
It’s illegal for pharmacies to charge Medicaid patients out of pocket when the drugs are covered by the state.
“In every case we can, we are extending flexibility and creativity that people can access their medications through the pharmacy and that they aren’t paying out of pocket for that,” McCracken said.
Officials also stress that state data was not affected. Though it’s unknown whether patient identity data through Change Healthcare was compromised.
In a statement Monday, Change Healthcare’s parent company, Optum, said it’s working on multiple approaches to restore services. “We are working on multiple approaches to restore the impacted environment and will not take any shortcuts or take any additional risk as we bring our systems back online.”
While Change works to get its systems back up and running, Downes wishes the state had a backup system and sees the issue as a matter of life and death.
“It’s my son,” she said. “If it was me, eh. But it’s my son and I can’t let him and every time you have a seizure and there’s more of a chance that you can die, and I can’t do that to him.”
Right now, there is no timeline for when Change Healthcare will have its systems back up and running.
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