UnitedHealth to take up to $1.6 billion hit from Change Healthcare hack this year By Reuters

(Reuters) – UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:) took a hit of $872 million to first-quarter profit from disruptions caused by the February cyberattack at its Change Healthcare (NASDAQ:) unit.

The disruptions are expected to impact profit by as much as $1.35 per share this year, the company said in a statement.

This is the healthcare conglomerate’s first public comment on the financial cost of the data breach, which disrupted services at pharmacies, hospitals, doctors offices and other providers as well as at community health centers in the United States.

Health insurers had to relax or remove prior authorization processes for some claims following the hack, stoking concerns of an increase in costs. At the same time, there were delays in claim submissions as medical care providers struggled with paperwork.

UnitedHealth has so far provided advance funding worth more than $6 billion to certain healthcare providers, and while several major of its major services have resumed operations, there are many more that continue to reel from the impact of the outage.

The healthcare conglomerate recorded a net loss of $1.53 per share due to a $7 billion charge related to the sale of its Brazil unit Amil to businessman Jose Seripieri Filho, the founder and former chief executive of health insurance firm Qualicorp.

The company said it was expecting net profit of $17.60 to $18.20 per share to reflect the Brazil sale and the estimated direct response costs of the cyberattack.

Shares of the company rose 4.35% to $465.55 in premarket trading.