Nationwide cyberattack impacting Albuquerque healthcare facilities
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A cyberattack felt across the country is crippling people’s ability to get critical lifesaving medication. News 13 has reported on its impact on pharmacies, and now we’re learning it’s affecting all different areas of healthcare, including right here in Albuquerque.
“It has simply shut down all of our operations, everything we do.” Dr. Barbara McAneny, with the New Mexico Cancer Center in northeast Albuquerque, says the company is taking it one day at a time after a nationwide cyberattack. “We cannot submit a bill, we don’t get any money from the bills we had already submitted. We can’t write a prescription or electronically prescribe something for a patient,” McAneny said.
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The largest drug processing company in the country, Change Healthcare which is under United Healthcare, reported a cyberattack in February. The company disconnected its systems more than two weeks ago affecting pharmacies all across the U.S. like the one at Kirtland Air Force Base. Now, it’s impacting other areas of healthcare, like at the New Mexico Cancer Center, where a top priority is using the money they do have to pay the staff. “They can stay on the job and take care of our patients,” McAneny said.
The center buys millions of dollars worth of chemotherapy drugs every month for patients in Albuquerque and at their clinic in Gallup. But right now, with no money coming in, time is ticking. “I don’t have five million dollars worth of reserves, I can’t buy a month’s worth of chemotherapy in advance and that’s what worries me the most because if I can’t get my chemotherapy to my patients, that’s a major problem,” McAneny said.
She says they’re hoping their supplier will grant a 90-day grace period for payment. “We have to have the chemo still coming into the practice so we can give it to the patients.”
Concerns grow as the days have now turned into weeks. The Cancer Center is asking for help from state leaders, the federal government and the companies they work with.
While the New Mexico Cancer Center and many others across the U.S. wait for the issue to be resolved, they won’t be turning patients away. “We are determined that we will keep treating our patients, how I’m going to pay for it, I don’t yet know, but we are determined that we will find a way to take care of our patients,” McAneny said.
This comes just months after the Lovelace Health System Breach, which the NMCC says was not nearly to this magnitude. Right now, it’s unknown when this problem will be fixed.
