Two weeks ago, Change Healthcare began notifying thousands of medical practices about a massive data breach affecting millions of patients. The healthcare software firm says it will handle breach notifications, but industry groups want to guarantee the government will go along with that plan.

If not, the groups fear that small medical practices, hospitals and other providers will be saddled with major costs and a drain on resources – after many already suffered financial woes from the cyberattack and subsequent outage in February that disrupted services and billing for months.