Really Important - Eveyone Should Read

[TNP]

So, I’m putting this out here since it’s not been on the news despite it being a huge problem.

On 2/20, Change Healthcare got hacked by the Black Cat ransomware hackers. What is Change Healthcare? They’re the largest clearing house in the US. What’s a clearing house? They’re the middlemen between insurance companies and medical providers/hospitals.

Your doctors and hospitals send their insurance claims to the clearing house which sends them to the insurance companies. The insurance companies send the money to the clearing house which then sends it to the doctors and hospitals. The medical providers also send your prescriptions to the pharmacies which use the clearing house to validate them and file their insurance claims.

Pharmacies are starting to develop work around solutions but it’s made getting prescriptions filled difficult in many cases. Okay, inconvenient for everyone but only a disaster for some, right?

Wrong. The clearing house also has your medical information that is on the insurance claims. And Black Cat, who have claimed responsibility putting any doubt to rest, also has stated they stole 6 Tb of information. (That’s 6 million Mb so you don’t have to do the math.) So basically, anything that’s passed through Change Healthcare might now be in the hands of hackers.

Social Security numbers are not usually on insurance claim forms but your names, addresses, and insurance ID numbers definitely are. Be aware of this. It’s only been 8 days so far and no one has any idea what’s going to happen.

[Rinel]

@TNP

Thanks for the heads up.

[icanbeyourmuse]

You should note you mean in the United States? Since not everyone here is from there. At least I am assuming you mean the USA as the country you are talking of.

[TNP]

@icanbeyourmuse Correct. I’ll edit.

[Cobalt]

Fuck.