Change Healthcare Network Interruption

This incident has been resolved. Functions have been restored.

On May 10th, 2024, Apex announced our intention to reroute claims that did not have an electronic connection to paper claims at no additional cost to you. As of, June 7th, the follow process will be enabled:

• Past claims - All claims submitted between 02/20/2024 and 06/06/2024 that have a status of “Sent to Payer” will be eligible for paper claim submission.
• The impacted payers can be found here: https://support.therapybrands.com/s/article/Payers-That-Are-Moving-to-Paper-Claims-Therapy-Brands
• If you wish to have these claims printed out and mailed to the payer at no additional cost, please resubmit these claims to Apex. To resubmit, simply click the action menu beside the claim on our website and click 'resubmit now'.
• These claims will be printed and mailed via a 3rd party vendor at no additional cost to you.
• Go forward claims – for both Medical and Dental claims, temporarily, if we do not have an electronic connection, we will process these claims as paper claims at no additional cost to you. Please ensure that claims have valid payer addresses or your submission will be rejected
• We continue to work on providing other solutions such as attachments and eligibility. We will provide communication at a future date

We continue to work closely with Change Healthcare to reestablish ERA connections. You should see a significant increase in ERA’s starting later next week as we have just completed the re-enrollment process with Change Healthcare. Please be advised that this does not impact ERA’s from the time of the incident to present. We ask that you continue to visit payer portals and other resources to gather this information.

Thank you for your continued patience during the Change Healthcare Outage. We want to continue to provide our customers with the latest updates.

Regrettably, due to an unforeseen circumstance with our third-party vendor, we are temporarily delaying the rollout of the paper claims initiative. Rest assured; our goal is to have this technical issue resolved as quickly as possible!

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue to use payer portals or other means to submit claims if needed. Again, we are working to quickly resolve this situation and appreciate your patience.

Thank you,

Your Apex Support Team

Thank you for your continued patience during the recent Change Healthcare Outage. We are excited to announce an update and plan to move forward for our Apex customers.

***************************************************************
For Dental Customers:

We have rerouted our dental connections to Availity but have found that their payer list is limited. While we build out a full integration, including attachments, we are implementing the following to help get your claims moving if you haven’t already found another delivery method:

Effective May 15, 2024, claims that can’t be sent electronically will be rejected with the following message “REJECT BY APEX: No Electronic Payer Available. Please resubmit this claim to send via paper claim“

If you wish to have these claims printed out and mailed to the payer at no additional cost, please resubmit these claims to Apex.
These claims will then be printed and mailed via a 3rd party vendor at no cost to you

Attachments are currently available through the Availity portal while we complete a full integration of our attachments service as was previously available.

***************************************************************
For Medical Customers:

There are a few payers that can only be routed through Change Healthcare and at this time do not have an electronic connection.
Effective May 15, 2024, claims that can’t be sent electronically will be rejected with the following message “REJECT BY APEX: No Electronic Payer Available. Please resubmit this claim to send via paper claim.”

If you would like these claims to be submitted via paper at no additional cost to you, please resubmit these claims to Apex.
These claims will then be printed and mailed via a 3rd party vendor at no cost to you.

***************************************************************
We are working closely with Change Healthcare to reestablish the flow of ERA’s. In addition, we are also researching alternative connections for ERA’s. Please be aware that as we establish new ERA connections, this will require re-enrollment. In the meantime, please continue to utilize your payer portals and paper EOBs for payment posting and reconciliation.

Thank you for your continued patience during the recent Change Healthcare Outage!

We wanted to provide a brief update to let you know that we continue to work with Change Healthcare and are awaiting their guidance to reconnect with their service. They are working with payers to provide dual ERA enrollments at the TIN level with many payers. They informed us today that they have completed this process for a select few Medicare payers and will be expanding the list regularly. They have advised that for these select Medicare payers, ERA’s should start to flow by next week. We will continue to provide more information as it is shared with us.

In the meantime, we encourage you to continue to refer to payer portals for reimbursement information. We also encourage everyone to ensure that their information is up to date with all payers as well as Payspan, Zelis, and Echo, if these services are used. This is particularly important because many claims are being re-routed across the clearinghouse industry. Due to this process, we have had a few instances where payers have sent paper checks despite having previously enrolled for EFT services.

Thank you for being a valued Therapy Brands customer!

----Dental Customers----

For the dental payers that were rerouted as of today, Availity provides the following recommendations for attachments. Availity offers a free tool for providers. You will need to register and create an account here:

https://www.availity.com/Essentials

We are exploring additional payers that can be rerouted through Availity as well as options for paper claims.

Availity Essentials Provider Portal:
The Availity Essentials Portal is a secure, real-time platform where payers and providers work together and communicate electronically.

Availity Essentials Provider Portal
The Availity Essentials Portal is a secure, real-time platform where payers and providers work together and communicate electronically.

----Dental Customers----

Thank you for your continued patience during the recent Change Healthcare Outage. We know it has been a challenging time.

We are excited to announce that we will be rerouting a majority of dental payers for dental claims as of Monday, April 15, 2024. We will provide an additional communication early next week when dental claims have been successfully rerouted to Availity. Here is a list of dental payers that we will be able to reroute.

https://support.therapybrands.com/s/article/Dental-Payers-Apex?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8yQjB8s1GcpEzG028sGiyW4N-4jh21mIuFajW9raD0AcDKis1V1JT3cWz9LK-ItCq8P8VbYxgESwHQa2qOHRYz276ojSn24FzObbQAAg_2urX9L1g&_hsmi=302439592&utm_content=302439592&utm_source=hs_email

We are still working on alternative options for paper dental claims and will provide more information once a solution has been reached.

Thank you,

----Dental Customers----

Thank you for your continued patience during the recent Change Healthcare Outage. We know it has been a challenging time and rest assured, our team has been working around the clock to find alternative solutions.

We're actively testing a temporary alternative solution and aim to provide you with more detailed information within the next 3-5 business days. Your understanding as we navigate the CHC Cyber incident is greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, we encourage you to learn more about the Change Healthcare Temporary Funding Assistance Program, to explore their payments lending program. As of today, they have provided more than $2.5 billion to those affected by the outage and recently expanded the program.

Temporary Funding Assistance: https://www.optum.com/en/business/providers/health-systems/payments-lending-solutions/optum-pay/temporary-funding-assistance.html

We recognize what a challenge this has been for so many of our customers and we will continue to provide solutions that will serve our customers well.

Your Apex Team

Thank you for your patience during the recent CHC outage; we see and hear each of you affected by this event. We know it has been a challenging time and rest assured, we have been working around the clock to continue to find solutions for those that remain impacted.

For our Medical Customers: This last week we found alternative connections for all medical payers that were sent through Change Healthcare, with the exception of those that require EDI Claim enrollment prior to submissions. Due to the significant amount of time required for payers to process enrollment forms, we have opted to hold these claims until Change Healthcare comes online the week of March 18th. This will be a slow and soft opening according to Change Healthcare, but we hope to see swift submissions of these “Payer Enrollment Required” claims once services have been restored. These payers listed are claims that will be held until Change Healthcare reopens:

Payers Impacted: https://support.therapybrands.com/s/article/Payers-Impacted-Due-to-Change-Healthcare-Security-Incident-Therapy-Brands

For our Dental Customers: Our teams are continuing to work on alternative solutions for our Apex EDI customers that have existing dental claims to process. We will communicate with you as soon as we have a solution to share. As of today, we have been informed that CHC will start bringing their internal systems back up the week of March 18th, 2024. We are working on a solution for dental claims and attachments in the meantime. We appreciate your feedback and want you to know that we are listening. We have realized our dependency on utilizing Change Healthcare as a sole vendor and are working hard to remove this dependency. In the coming months, you’ll start to see functionality that will move us away from the use of a single source vendor.

Dental Attachments are solely processed through Change Healthcare at this time which has resulted in our services not being available. With Change Healthcare coming back online the week of March 18th, we will see restored services for attachments soon. We are specifically looking into internal alternatives for attachments to remove this dependency on vendors for essential services. We anticipate over the coming year that we will have further improvements and commit to our mission to provide an effortless experience for our customers.

For All ERA Customers for Payers through Change Healthcare: Due to the significant amount of time required for payers to approve ERA enrollment forms, we are finding that it would not be advantageous for us to ask our customers to complete new ERA enrollment forms. These forms are time consuming and can be difficult to process at the payer. Because of Change Healthcare’s announcement regarding systems returning to production the week of March 18th, we advise any customers that need their ERAs immediately to go to the payer directly for that information until such time that we can receive those ERAs again through Change Healthcare. This outage has taught us many lessons about the reliance of outside vendors to support our work. We are taking steps toward removing this reliance and instead becoming a direct connection with all possible payers. These moves in the coming months will result in small and slow amounts of enrollments to be completed and will increase the speed and efficiency of ERAs pairing to claims. We anticipate that these coming changes will significantly improve our customer experience regarding Electronic Remits.

Please note that payers NOT affected by the Change Healthcare outage have continued to function normally and all data has been processed as intended and expected previously.

Additionally, we want to continue to share the United Healthcare/Change Healthcare website with our customers so that you can get updated information and possible payment options provided by CHC as soon as it becomes available.

UnitedHealth and Change Healthcare Websites:

Temporary Funding Assistance: https://www.optum.com/en/business/providers/health-systems/payments-lending-solutions/optum-pay/temporary-funding-assistance.html

Change Healthcare Outage Updates: https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/changehealthcarecyberresponse?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=297459662&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8Vys9pPB11rlCuVrYi-bwD4c8w8oXlWXO9QFmho401DaYTcxny2pwro8nMg4N1LTjFELWIP4xmVIR2VWhriiP-4MqzZiplMgHgDV2pmAlP4oyLDT4&utm_content=297459662&utm_source=hs_email

We will continue to update you as this situation evolves. We recognize what a challenge this has been for so many of our customers and we will continue to provide solutions that will serve our customers well. Our purpose is to help doctors focus on healing and we will continue to strive to provide an effortless experience for electronic claims submissions.

We recognize the impact the Change Healthcare security issue may have on your business, and our team is continuing to work tirelessly to identify safe and sustainable alternatives during this time. Please see below for more positive news today:

Our Apex clearinghouse is actively rerouting medical claims to Change Healthcare alternatives. We anticipate being able to reroute 90% of impacted claims over the next 24 hours. You should begin seeing status changes in payer portals as those claims reach the payer. Here is a link to the payers we are still finding alternative solutions for:

https://support.therapybrands.com/s/article/Payers-Impacted-Due-to-Change-Healthcare-Security-Incident-Therapy-Brands?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=297129417&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_Wdvl4FxzQDa3aU-t3uWcdTxOM7h0DIrFShQek07cPaPCSpzRfZChCvH4d7i8eqb4BqEz3QugnRU8kVcxjzHUMNeehFllgXc0GUSegm0B-1pxZX1w&utm_content=297129417&utm_source=hs_email

Please be advised: you may not see a status change right away. Due to the high volume of claims being processed, please be patient as these claims are rerouted. We ask that you wait to contact Support about claim statuses until all rerouting has been completed and payers have had time to process inbound volume.

Important to note:

We are continuing to explore alternatives for those impacted payers that we have not yet been able to reroute. We will continue to provide updates as we make progress, but additional details can be found in the FAQs.

The rerouting of medical claims does not include ERAs. Please continue to review payer portals for ERA information, as the ERA process is dependent on Change Healthcare.

To keep you informed on the latest developments and address any questions you may have, we encourage you to continue to review the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page regarding the outage:

https://support.therapybrands.com/s/article/FAQs-Change-Healthcare-Outage-Therapy-Brands?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=297129417&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_UUUAIzfii0yD0h6fdvpRVe9ncafPkMVsOpMpEecsBYHjPHfYk0eiGO3uLsZLmWrU2XhLyUjS5cwsxG6a3SDmuB3ajVPKL0BSRihYiHJ_iUQ_uYv4&utm_content=297129417&utm_source=hs_email

We are actively exploring alternatives for dental claims and dental attachments, we have promising options and hope to have more good news for you in the coming days.

We will continue to update you as this situation evolves. We recognize what a challenge this has been for so many of our customers and we will continue to work hard to provide solutions that will serve our customers well.

Last week we were informed that Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue. Change Healthcare’s security experts are working to address this matter. Change Healthcare is widely used to connect clearinghouses, pharmacies, and labs so our customers may experience delays in processing claims, ERAs, eligibility requests, prescription transmission, and labs. The incident occurred outside of Therapy Brands’ environment and there was no direct impact to Therapy Brands based on our analysis. We are actively monitoring the situation and will provide additional updates.

It is unclear as to how long this outage is expected to last, but in the meantime, we want to provide an update on what parts of our solutions or services may be impacted by this interruption. Please note: not all Therapy Brands solutions have been affected by this outage.

Clearinghouse (Apex), RCM (Managed Billing), Dental Attachments, and Eligibility Services

All insurance claims submitted through our Clearinghouse, Apex, have been received. Claims routing to payers via the Change Healthcare network are currently being held for processing until Change Healthcare has resolved this network interruption. Once the connection is reestablished, Apex will submit all received claims. Here is a link to a list of impacted payers:

https://therapybrands.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/24065764776340-Payers-Impacted-Due-to-Change-Healthcare-Security-Incident-Therapy-Brands

Here is also a link to our FAQs page for this outage:

https://therapybrands.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/24129601674644-FAQs-Change-Healthcare-Outage-Therapy-Brands

In the interim, there are two options for submitting claims:

1. Continue to submit via your normal process through Apex EDI, we will continue to submit claims to payers not on the impacted list above like normal. And will be holding any claims sent to payers on the list above until Change Healthcare resumes service or an alternative solution is found.

2. Submit directly to the payor. Please remember: do not submit twice as it could cause delays or denials.

For claims that are going through other clearinghouses, most if not all clearinghouses are holding claims that would be sent through Change Healthcare until the connection is reestablished. Please avoid resubmitting claims through both channels to prevent denial and reconciliation issues.

Eligibility Services will continue to be limited due to the Change Healthcare situation. If you have issues getting responses, we advise you to visit payer portals for this information until the situation is resolved.

Dental Attachments will be limited due to the Change Healthcare situation. We are working diligently to find an alternative solution in the mean time.

To ensure our Support team can continue to provide the fastest responses possible, please refrain from contacting Support about this Change Healthcare issue and use the link below for status updates. The Support team will be unable to provide any additional information.

We will continue to update our Therapy Brands customers as more information becomes available. In the meantime, please refer to the Change Healthcare website for any status updates: https://status.changehealthcare.com/

Yesterday we were informed that Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue. Change Healthcare’s security experts are working to address this matter. Change Healthcare is widely used to connect clearinghouses, pharmacies, and labs so our customers may experience delays in processing claims, ERAs, eligibility requests, prescription transmission, and labs. The incident occurred outside of Therapy Brands’ environment and there was no direct impact to Therapy Brands based on our analysis. We are actively monitoring the situation and will provide additional updates.

We are unclear as to how long this outage is expected to last, but in the meantime, we want to provide an update on what parts of our solutions or services may be impacted by this interruption.

Clearinghouse (Apex), RCM (Managed Billing), Dental Attachments and Eligibility Services:

All insurance claims submitted through our Clearinghouse, Apex, have been received and are currently being held for processing until Change Healthcare has resolved this network interruption. Once the connection is reestablished, Apex will submit all received claims. For claims that are going through other clearinghouses, most if not all clearinghouses are holding claims till the connection is reestablished. For claims not yet sent to your clearinghouse, submit them as usual or directly through the payer's portal. Avoid resubmitting claims through both channels to prevent denial and reconciliation issues. Eligibility Services will continue to be limited due to the Change Healthcare situation. If you have issues getting responses, we advise you to visit payer portals for this information until the situation is resolved.

To ensure our Support team can continue to provide the fastest responses possible, please refrain from contacting Support about this Change Healthcare issue and use the link below for status updates. The Support team will be unable to provide any additional information.

https://status.changehealthcare.com/incidents/hqpjz25fn3n7?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=295436586&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_3oFVBOPJl0VxhbeTdljTbW-MIfrjSATiWZc4joEl-2xZd4NcPGoz5_wI4xv_ihfbOyWRoJ1qjgSd4hJwcFQR08r897pp-8VEcLs0PHi5srHdeTTw&utm_content=295436586&utm_source=hs_email

We will provide another update to our Therapy Brands customers on Monday as we learn more information. In the meantime, please refer to the Change Healthcare website for any status updates:

We have been informed that Change Healthcare is experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue. Change Healthcare’s security experts are working to address this matter. Our customers may experience delays in processing Claims, ERAs, Dental Attachments and Eligibility Requests.

Change Healthcare is widely used to connect other clearinghouses to payers, so this outage may impact claims processing services for all clearinghouses including Apex, Office Ally, Waystar/Zirmed, and Availity.

Your data within the Therapy Brands is not impacted. We are unclear as to how long this outage is expected to last, however, we will provide you with an update as more information becomes available.

You can also check Change HealthCare's status page for updates on this outage. (https://status.changehealthcare.com/)

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available to us.