May 1, 2024
The Honorable Ron Wyden | The Honorable Mike Crapo |
Chairman | Ranking Member |
Senate Committee on Finance | Senate Committee on Finance |
215 Dirksen Senate Office Building | 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building |
Washington, DC 20510 | Washington, DC 20510 |
Re: MGMA Statement for the Record — Senate Committee on Finance Hearing, “Hacking America’s Health Care: Assessing the Change Healthcare Cyber Attack and What’s Next”
Dear Chairman Wyden and Ranking Member Crapo:
The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) thanks you for holding this important hearing examining the Change Healthcare cyberattack and what comes next. MGMA members were significantly impacted by the cyberattack and continue to deal with the fallout. We appreciate the Committee reviewing how this caused so much disruption to our nation’s health system and examining policies to help mitigate future cyberattacks.
With a membership of more than 60,000 medical practice administrators, executives, and leaders, MGMA represents more than 15,000 group medical practices ranging from small private medical practices to large national health systems, representing more than 350,000 physicians. MGMA’s diverse membership uniquely situates us to offer the following policy recommendations.
On Feb. 21, Change Healthcare experienced a cyberattack that critically impacted the U.S. healthcare system, causing unprecedented outages. Change Healthcare touches one in three patient records and processes 15 billion healthcare transactions annually. With one corporate entity providing so many services to such a wide swath of the nation’s healthcare ecosystem, the disruptions caused by the malicious cyberattack resulted in substantial harm.