Tech & Innovation in Healthcare

Contact Optum if your provider needs additional funding.

On April 4, 2024, AAPC and Optum held a joint webinar to inform AAPC members of the Change Healthcare system restoration process and answer questions regarding the outage.

Find out what Optum representatives shared with members and how to request additional funding during the interruption.

Find Out Which Systems Are Restored

During the webinar, attendees and others affected by the outage questioned Optum as to when all services will be fully restored. Representatives directed attendees to the UnitedHealth Group Product Restoration website for up-to-date information regarding which systems are online again, as the answer truly depends on the payer and the product.

“Some of you may be restored by now, some of you might be on a journey and a phased approach to being fully restored,” said Serrah Linares, senior vice president of partnerships at Optum.

At the time of the recording, representatives couldn’t put a firm date on the table as to when everything would be online, nor did they note which services take priority. “We want to help the most people as effectively and as quickly as possible, so certainly starting with high-volume payers is important. But again, we’re really swarming this situation so we can get to as many payers as they’re ready to connect directly with us,” stated Cindy Klain, senior vice president and general manager of Optum Insight’s Network and Applied Intelligent Solutions.

Reach Out If Your Providers Need Greater Financial Support

At the time of the webinar, UnitedHealth Group had advanced nearly $4.7 billion in temporary funding to healthcare practices and providers. And at the time of publication, more than $6 billion has been supplied to providers in need.

Attendees and applicants have informed UnitedHealth Group that the amount they received was less than what the providers initially expected. “There is an automatic approval based on our payment products and UnitedHealthcare,” Linares said. “Some of you have asked ‘how is that being calculated?’ What I want to do is encourage you within the same area of the form to request manually a funding amount that you need or to give us a call,” she added.