Cybersecurity outage at UnitedHealth's (UNH.N) technology unit Change Healthcare entered a sixth day and is expected to last at least through Monday, according to the latest update on its status page.
The problems began last Wednesday after a "suspected nation-state associated cybersecurity threat actor" gained access to Change Healthcare's information technology systems, UnitedHealth said in a filing last week.
Change Healthcare and UnitedHealth did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking comment on when the outage may resolve.
A number of pharmacy chains, including CVS Health (CVS.N) and Walgreens (WBA.O), have said the outage was having knock-on effects on their businesses.
Change Healthcare, a Tennessee-based provider of healthcare billing and data systems, is a part of UnitedHealth's health services unit Optum and a key node in the U.S. healthcare system.
The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) said on Friday many pharmacies across the United States could not transmit insurance claims for their patients following the hack at Change Healthcare network.
APhA said pharmacies across the nation were reporting "significant backlogs of prescriptions", which they were unable to process.
Ratings agency Moody's had said last week the hack was a "credit negative" for UnitedHealth Group's rating, while Fitch said it does not expect that the company's capital position or financial performance would be materially affected due to the outage.
