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Optum Health CEO Amar Desai, M.D., took the stage at ViVE on Monday morning to discuss the company’s value-based care ambitions and strategy, but there was a clear elephant in the room: the cyberattack on Change Healthcare that’s still causing disruption nationwide.
Desai said the Optum team has been in regular communication with its clients’ technology and cybersecurity leaders as it navigates a response to the lingering challenge. He emphasized that the issue is confined to Change’s systems, and that Optum broadly, UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Group were spared.
“We don’t have much more to share than what has been shared publicly, but we continue to work the problem,” he said. “We have external partners also engaged with us in every aspect of it.”
Desai was also asked about lessons learned over the past week, and he said that “first and foremost, vigilance is important at all times.” He said it’s also critical to make sure both the internal team and external partners understand “that there is a proud level of interconnectedness” at play.