#Cynergistek ocr tool kit plus

“A 500-bed hospital can expect a $50 million cash flow shortfall before they start to crawl back out of their cash flow deficit, which works out to be about $100,000 per bed,” Hewitt said. Downtime forms must be transcribed into the electronic health record before claims can be submitted, which is part of the delay in reimbursements. In addition to traditional attacks on individual providers, hackers are increasingly targeting tech vendors and virtual care providers, as these firms control large amounts of data across multiple sites of care.īased on typical cash flow in hospitals and other health care properties, interruptions to billing processes caused by ransomware attacks can halt incoming revenue for up to two months. “But you know, that’s only two data points out of literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that have been hacked by ransomware,” Hewitt said.īetween January 1 and September 30 of 2019, 491 health care organizations were affected by ransomware, according to Hewitt. In another case, a separate organization was hacked but back up in 18 hours - showing the broad continuum of time that it can take for a facility to get back on its feet. For instance, Hewitt described a ransomware attack on a single organization within a multi-hospital system: After an initial two-week period without data, it took an additional three weeks to bring the entire system back online. Hospitals generally have been affected more than nursing homes - although any breach could set a facility back for months at a time with heavy financial burdens. Suggesting that these attacks continue to grow in sophistication, Hewitt laid out how ransomware events challenge patient safety, as well as affecting financial performance and facility operations. Some companies also hire CynergisTek to proactively protect against potentially debilitating attacks. Hewitt has been a cybersecurity expert for more than 30 years, and works with clients who have been impacted by ransomware at all stages of a breach.

#Cynergistek ocr tool kit plus

“If you look at their client base in 45 states, and if the ransomware touched all of the patient data, they’ve got 45 state attorneys general to deal with us, plus the Office for Civil Rights,” Hewitt said. When a data firm such as VCPI has operations across the country, a data breach can bring a wide array of regulatory headaches on top of the initial security and operational concerns. On the heels of this ransomware attack, Clyde Hewitt, an executive advisor at CynergisTek, a Texas-based health care cybersecurity company, offered several takeaways to help nursing homes protect and prepare for a breach on such a large scale - and what to do in the aftermath.