Powell Valley Healthcare is still working its way back to normal operations after a cyberattack against a company that handles billing services for hospitals across the county — including Powell.

While staff have been able to handle situations so patients aren’t overly affected by the Change Healthcare hack, not being able to bill for services has dropped cash on hand to just 26.4 days worth after not being able to bill for any services in March.

“This month we’ve started the process of getting connected,” CFO Coby La Blue said at the April board meeting, adding “It’s been an arduous process … Hopefully from this day forward our cash on hand will go back up.”

She said part of the process has been reconnected so Powell can send bills to the company, but Change Healthcare is still working on ensuring the process to send back remittances and the final steps to payment are safe before the service is back to normal.

Earlier in April, La Blue anticipated another one or two months before the systems are fully operational, saying Change Healthcare is reinstating services slowly and methodically. 

The cyberattack against Change Healthcare that began on Feb. 21 is the most serious incident of its kind leveled against a U.S. health care organization, according to a report by American Hospital Association.

Billings Clinic IT staff immediately disconnected all systems connected with Change Healthcare as soon as they heard about the attack.

On May 1, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) questioned UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty on the cyberattack, according to a press release. Specifically, Barrasso reported the attack’s impact on Wyoming’s local hospitals and pressed Witty on whether Change Healthcare is addressing claim processing issues, improving security measures with multi-factor authentication, and protecting small medical practices from devastating financial liability in the future during a congressional hearing.

“Since the Change Healthcare cyberattack, I've heard from hospitals and providers all across Wyoming — and I'm sure you've heard from people all across the country,” Barrasso said, adding “We want you to make sure you're specifically prioritizing these rural and financially vulnerable hospitals because they need to keep their doors open and they're the only sources of supply.”

According to Change Healthcare, the company processes 15 billion health care transactions annually and touches one in every three patient records. These transactions include a range of services that directly affect patient care, including eligibility verifications and pharmacy operations, as well as claims transmittals and payment. All of these have been disrupted to varying degrees over the past several days and the full impact is still not known.

In Powell, the hospital and pharmacies being disconnected from the service hasn’t prevented patients from being and even prescribed medications, but hospital and pharmacy staff have had to go through some extra hoops to make it happen. La Blue said patients have also been calling frustrated that their account balances are not being updated after they’ve paid. She said that’s because Change handles that — when they are able to reconnect she said those accounts will be updated.