Shares of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurance company in the U.S., rose nearly 6% on Tuesday morning following an update on the massive cyberattack against the company earlier this year.
In its second quarterly earnings report, UnitedHealth announced that it has restored most of the services affected at its subsidiary Change Healthcare, a medical record and payment manager.
The company disclosed that the total impact of the cyberattack in the second quarter amounted to $0.92 per share. To date, UnitedHealth has provided over $9 billion in advance funding and interest-free loans to support impacted healthcare providers.
This financial support and the costs to notify affected customers have led UnitedHealth to increase its estimate of the cyberattack’s impact to between $1.90 and $2.05 per share for the full year.
Despite these expenses, UnitedHealth reaffirmed its adjusted net earnings forecast of $27.50 to $28.00 per share, expressing confidence in its ability to absorb the cyberattack costs.
For the three months ending June 30, UnitedHealth reported $98.9 billion in revenue, surpassing Wall Street expectations of $98.7 billion, according to FactSet.
“During the quarter, we prioritized allocating resources to support care providers affected by the cyberattack over 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, dedicating our efforts to provide stability for the health system.”
In February, the ransomware group ALPHV breached Change Healthcare, causing delays in prescriptions and paychecks for healthcare workers.
In a previous update, UnitedHealth stated that a preliminary review of targeted data found files containing protected health information and personally identifiable information, potentially affecting 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 to $5.5 billion in the same period the prior year.
Year-over-year revenue increased by 6% to $98.9 billion in the first quarter, up from $93 billion.
Earnings per share reached $6.80, outpacing Wall Street expectations of $6.66, according to a consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet.