SALT LAKE CITY — Wednesday marked day eight of U.S. pharmacies being shut out of the system that allows them to verify insurance claims from Medicaid members.
"Every minute that passes for them, they're losing money,” said Pete Ashdown, the president and founder of Xmission. “They're losing customers, and they want to get this resolved as quickly as possible.”
Ashdown isn’t shocked that hackers got inside United Health’s Change Healthcare’s systems.
“It's something that just comes with the internet,” he said. “There's no complete security on the internet, no 100 percent security on the internet. This type of thing is going to happen over and over.”
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services devoted last weekend to calling thousands of Utahns who needed life-saving medication, according to Jennifer Strohecker, the state Medicaid director.
“We gave them basic information to help them understand what was happening right now with their pharmacy benefits and also gave them some instructions on how to navigate it,” she said.
The DHHS has created a form for pharmacies to fill out so they can request a payment directly from the Medicaid program.
“We are asking pharmacies to check Medicaid eligibility with every Medicaid member that may come into their pharmacy, and then when they verify their eligibility, to process the prescription as a cash claim to provide the member with a 30-day supply of medication at no charge,” said Strohecker.
The DHHS encourages any Medicaid patients experiencing difficulty with getting their medications at Utah pharmacies to contact the department at 1-866-608-9422.
