Unparallelled Support for Providers: The pivotal CDPHP response to the 2024 Change Healthcare service outage

2024 will be remembered by health care professionals for the unprecedented challenges caused by the cyber-attack on Change Healthcare and the resulting total shutdown of their platforms and services. Beginning in February, and for months that followed, providers and facilities across the country lost their usual claims clearinghouse, were delayed in receiving claims payments, and risked the very viability of their business. As the health care industry reeled from the impacts and doctors’ offices faced immediate cashflow problems, CDPHP responded by ramping up our support for providers and taking immediate action to help protect their practices and their patients, our members.

“CDPHP quickly informed us, and we appreciated the open line of communication,” says Billing Supervisor Jessica Rathbun at Amsterdam Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. “This was very helpful and made it easier for us.”

At Whitney M. Young Jr. Health Centers, Revenue Cycle Director Susanne Isabella agrees. “As always, CDPHP provided us with the most up-to-date info that assisted us in making decisions during this time of the unknown, our [CDPHP] rep went above and beyond to answer our questions and concerns,” she recalls. “CDPHP always ranks a 10 out of 10 for me, and by far was the easiest health plan to deal with during this time.”

How we helped our valued providers

From February through August of 2024, when Change Healthcare claims processing was restored, CDPHP used an organization-wide approach to address the challenges providers were facing. Our claims, accounting, IT, and provider relations teams all contributed to a provider-focused plan that included:

• Adjusting processes and deadlines to make sure providers continued to receive payment
• Assisting providers in quickly establishing service with alternate clearinghouses
• Adding helpful new tools to the CDPHP provider portal
• Manually printing tens of thousands of provider claims payment checks
• Devoting over 2000 additional person-hours to our efforts to help providers

“I would rate the CDPHP provider relations group as being a wonderful asset to us,” says Elaine Bezue, associate accounts poster at Montefiore St. Lukes Cornwall community hospital in Newburgh. “I want to say thanks a million and that [you’ve] been wonderful to work with and such a great help to us all.”

Coming from a place of understanding

With most of the dramatic disruption to the industry now in the rearview mirror, our provider network continues to praise our unwavering support and proven commitment to them throughout the entire ordeal.

“CDPHP has been the only company that’s been open, transparent, and willing to work with us to attack all the back-dated issues,” says Jennifer Tremblay, electronic medical record software support specialist at St. Catherine’s Center for Children in Albany. “Our fantastic CDPHP rep [helped] us fix the issues that so many agencies have had to deal with this past year due to the breach. CDPHP is the only payer that has been open to working with us and comes from a place of understanding.”

Providers have always been our priority

As a physician-founded, not-for-profit health plan, CDPHP has always prioritized support for our providers – with innovative programs, robust resources for practices, and value-based models of care that promote health care quality over quantity. The Change Healthcare crisis of 2024 brought unprecedented challenges, and we are proud to have met the moment with unparallelled care for our providers.