As you know, the Change Healthcare cyber incident continues to affect Cigna Healthcare, third party vendors we work with, and you – our health care provider partners – as we collectively rely on Change Healthcare to administer electronic services, including claim submissions, eligibility verification, and other administrative services. 

Since their system outage in February, Change Healthcare has been working diligently to restore their systems and create a safe environment that The Cigna Group can reconnect to. At the same time, Cigna Healthcare has maintained that they have high standards for security from all vendors and will only reestablish connection with Change Healthcare services after proper validation of the security of Change Healthcare’s environment has been determined.

Latest updates

November 25, 2024

Reconnecting with Change Healthcare for certain systems and services

We are pleased to share that the necessary security validations have taken place for certain systems, and Cigna Healthcare has successfully reconnected with Change Healthcare for the following services:

• Electronic remittance advice (ERA) transactions (i.e., 835s) were reconnected on August 6 for our U.S. Commercial and Individual and Family Plans (IFP) lines of business. Historical and new remittances are now available through Change Healthcare.
• Health care claim status request and response transactions (i.e., 276/277s) were reconnected on October 7 for U.S. Commercial, Medicare Advantage, and IFP lines of business.
• Eligibility and benefits transactions (i.e., 270/271s) were reconnected on October 22 for U.S. Commercial, Medicare Advantage, and IFP lines of business.

Reconnecting with Change Healthcare for ERAs

For U.S. Commercial and IFP

Below are the Cigna payer IDs participating in ERA connectivity restoration.

Payer name	T	Claims payer ID	ERA payer ID
Cigna Health Plans	I	62308	62308
Cigna Health Plans	P	62308	62308
Cigna Select Great-West Healthcare	I	62308	62308
Cigna Select Great-West Healthcare	P	62308	62308

Receiving ERAs through Change Healthcare and other vendors

We understand that many providers moved their transactional needs, including remittances, to another clearinghouse or vendor while Change Healthcare was offline. Providers who connected with another clearinghouse or vendor do not have to reconnect with Change Healthcare and can continue to use any of the vendors we continue to work with.

However, if you choose to reconnect with Change Healthcare to receive ERAs for Commercial and IFP Cigna Healthcare claims, please note that you must re-enroll with Change Healthcare:

• Providers who were previously enrolled with Change Healthcare and did not switch their enrollment away from Change Healthcare should have begun receiving ERAs.
• Providers who moved their enrollment to another clearinghouse during the outage and want to receive ERAs from Change Healthcare again will need to re-enroll with them prior to receiving ERAs for Cigna Healthcare.
• New providers must complete a new enrollment form with Change Healthcare.

For Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage

As a reminder, we partnered with Zelis in March 2024 to issue payments for all claims submitted to Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage, including any outstanding claims that providers previously submitted directly to Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage, to another vendor (e.g., Availity), or to Change Healthcare (prior to when they went offline on February 21).

Zelis is also responsible for issuing payments for any new claims that providers submit directly to Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage or through another vendor. Importantly, Zelis is able to generate ERAs for all claims they issue payments for.

Obtaining ERAs for Cigna Medicare Advantage claims

Please note that Change Healthcare does not have ability to regenerate historical ERAs for Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage claims. Therefore, Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage will not be able to reconnect directly with Change Healthcare for ERAs.

However, while Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage cannot connect directly to Change Healthcare to provide ERAs, Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage began sending ERAs to Zelis as of March 2024. Therefore, because Zelis is connected with Change Healthcare, providers can receive certain Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage ERAs through Change Healthcare.

• For claims submitted prior to March 2024 | ERAs for these claims are unfortunately not available. For help with these claims, please contact the Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage Provider Service Team at 800.230.6138.
• For claims after March 2024 | ERAs for these claims are available through Zelis, who can pass them through to Change Healthcare. To access these ERAs, please contact Zelis at 855.496.1571 before reconnecting with Change Healthcare.

For providers who choose to use Change Healthcare to receive ERAs from Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage

• Providers who were previously enrolled with Change Healthcare, but are not receiving current ERAs, please contact Zelis at 855.496.1571 before re-enrolling with Change Healthcare for ERAs.
• Providers who were previously enrolled with Change Healthcare and are looking for historical ERAs prior to March 2024, please contact the Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage Provider Service Team at 800.230.6138.
• Providers who were not previously enrolled to receive ERAs from Cigna Healthcare Medicare Advantage, please contact Zelis at 855.496.1571 before enrolling with Change Healthcare.

Reconnecting additional systems through Change Healthcare

Cigna Healthcare also continues to work with Change Healthcare to reconnect additional services, including claim submissions (837) for U.S. Commercial, IFP, and Medicare Advantage. We expect 837s to be available over the next month, with certain remaining systems to follow by end of year.

Keeping you updated

We appreciate providers’ patience with us and Change Healthcare as the industry collectively recovers from the cyber security incident. We will keep you updated with the latest restoration efforts as new information becomes available.

Previous updates

April 23, 2024

• We appreciate that UnitedHealth Group has created a dedicated website to announce updates on the Change Healthcare cyber security incident. On this site, they have shared a restoration timeline for key products and capabilities, which currently indicates that certain services remain offline or are not fully restored.
• Despite the progress Change Healthcare has made to restore certain services, Cigna Healthcare’s connection to Change Healthcare systems remains severed as they continue to work on fully fixing this issue and restoring their systems.
• The Cigna Group has high standards for security from all vendors and will not reestablish connection with Change Healthcare services until proper validation of the security of Change Healthcare’s environment has been determined.
• This validation will not take place by The Cigna Group until Change Healthcare communicates that they have securely and successfully restored all their impacted services.
• Therefore, we cannot commit to a specific timeline right now for when Cigna Healthcare’s systems will be reconnected to Change Healthcare nor when digital transactions will start to flow through them again.
• Once a clear restoration timeline with Change Healthcare has been established, we will communicate that directly with you as soon as possible.

Alternative ways to submit claims

As a reminder, we continue to encourage you to utilize the many alternative digital trading partners we offer to submit claims directly to Cigna Healthcare. Please know that we have been in direct contact with these vendors and are confident in their ability to support your digital transactional needs in a timely manner.

You can also continue to submit paper claims directly to us through typical claims addresses and can access Explanation of Payments (EOPs) and Direct Deposit Activity Reports (also known as remittance reports) on CignaforHCP.com to reconcile payments for those claims.

Alternative options to check patient eligibility

Cigna Healthcare continues to offer two primary alternative options for you to check eligibility and benefits information for your patients with a Cigna Healthcare benefit plan:

Option one (online)

• Commercial and Arizona Medicare Advantage providers | Verify patient eligibility and verify patient and plan detail information on CignaforHCP.com.
• All other Medicare Advantage providers | Verify patient eligibility and verify patient and plan detail informationon the HSConnect Provider Portal.

Option two (automated phone)

• Commercial providers
  • Call Cigna Healthcare Customer Service at 800.88Cigna (882.4462).
• Arizona Medicare Advantage
  • Call Cigna Healthcare Arizona Customer Service at 800.627.7534.
• Medicare Advantage providers
  • Call Cigna Healthcare Customer Service at 800.230.6138.

Please note that for our Third-Party Administrator accounts (e.g., Shared Administration Repricing and Payer Solutions), we encourage you to continue to verify eligibility by calling the number on the back of the patient’s ID card. This also includes Strategic Alliances members residing in Cigna Healthcare markets (e.g., HealthPartners, MVP, Priority Health, and THP).

We remain committed to keeping you updated as we learn more.

Thank you for the ongoing care you provide our customers.