The cyberattack on Change Healthcare that debilitated health providers and pharmacies across the country last month sent a foreboding message: Your company may be the next big cyberattack victim.

“But Healthcare Brew,” you may be thinking, “we’re so careful with our employees. We send out phishing test emails every week. We have posters about not clicking on suspicious links hung up around the office.”

The problem is all of that might be too little, too late.

“Healthcare organizations can’t prevent becoming a target,” Steve Cagle, CEO of healthcare security and risk management company Clearwater, told Healthcare Brew. “The very nature of being in healthcare makes covered entities and business associates a target for cyberattacks.”

Keep reading here.—QS

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Quinn at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Quinn for their number on Signal.

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Legislation introduced in February may help healthcare providers identify young patients at high risk for suicide and self-harm.

The Child Suicide Prevention and Lethal Means Safety Act, sponsored by Representative Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), comes as youth suicide rates increase dramatically in the US: Suicide rates for people ages 10 to 24 rose over 52% (from 6.8 to 11 deaths per 100,000 people) between 2000 and 2021, according to the CDC. 

“In recent years, we’ve seen alarming spikes in anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges among the nation’s youth,” Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who introduced the bill to the Senate, said in a statement. “We must do more to expand access to mental health care and prevent youth suicide. This bill is critical to doing that by providing more training and resources for youth suicide prevention initiatives.”

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

The US government opened on Wednesday an investigation into the Change Healthcare cyberattack that focuses on whether a breach of health information happened and if UnitedHealth Group is in compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.

The investigation comes after the cyberattack on Change Healthcare caused a system outage on February 21, leaving health providers and pharmacies across the US unable to access patient insurance information or process prescriptions. UnitedHealth Group estimated that over 90% of the nation’s pharmacies had to modify insurance claim processing in response to the blowout of the cyberattack, according to KKTV.

The US Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which enforces HIPAA rules for “privacy, security, and breach notification,” will lead the investigation into the insurer. The OCR emphasized the importance of “[s]afeguarding protected health information.”

Keep reading here.—QS

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