Shares of the UnitedHealth $UNH Group, the largest health insurance company in the U.S., rose nearly 6% during Tuesday morning trading, after the company gave investors an update on the massive cyberattack against it earlier this year.
The company said it has restored most Change Healthcare services impacted by the cyberattack
Shares of the UnitedHealth $UNH Group, the largest health insurance company in the U.S., rose nearly 6% during Tuesday morning trading, after the company gave investors an update on the massive cyberattack against it earlier this year.
The company said in its second quarterly earnings report that it has restored the majority of affected services at its subsidiary Change Healthcare, a medical record and payment manager.
UnitedHealth said that the total cyberattack impacts in its second quarter amounted to $0.92 per share and that to date it has provided over $9 billion in advance funding and interest-free loans to support impacted health care providers.
This financial support and costs to notify impacted customers resulted in UnitedHealth increasing the financial estimate of its impact to between $1.90 to $2.05 per share for the full year.
Despite this, UnitedHealth said it is reaffirming its adjusted net earnings outlook of $27.50 to $28.00 per share, as it believes it can absorb the costs of the cyberattack.
The company reported $98.9 billion in revenue for the three months ending June 30, outperforming Wall Street expectations of $98.7 billion, according to FactSet.
“During the quarter, as I mentioned earlier, we prioritized devoting resources to support care providers in the wake of the cyber attack over some activities such as share repurchase,” said UnitedHealth president and chief financial officer John Franklin Rex in a call with investors on Tuesday. “It was the right thing to do, devoting all of our efforts to provide stability for the health system.”
In February, the ransomware group ALPHV breached Change Healthcare, delaying prescriptions and paychecks for healthcare workers.
United said in a previous update that a preliminary review of targeted data found files that contained protected health information and personally identifiable information, “which could cover a substantial portion of people in America.”
UnitedHealth’s net income fell 22% to $4.2 billion in the three months ending June 30, compared with $5.5 billion in the same period the prior year.
The company’s revenue was up 6% year-over-year to $98.9 billion in the first quarter, from $93 billion.
Its earnings per share came to $6.80, outperforming Wall Street expectations of $6.66, according to a consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet.
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