WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) - Health insurers told

the U.S. government they would accelerate payments to some

healthcare providers indirectly affected by a cyberattack on

UnitedHealth Group's ( UNH ) technology unit Change Healthcare,

senior U.S. health officials said on Monday.

Change Healthcare, which was hit by a cyberattack on Feb.

21, processes about 50% of medical insurance claims in the

United States, working with 900,000 physicians, 33,000

pharmacies, 5,500 hospitals and 600 laboratories.

The cyberattack disrupted insurance transactions and caused

an outage in claims submissions and provider payments. Speeding

up payment processing will alleviate cash flow problems for

providers.

Insurers committed at a meeting with U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services officials on Monday to expedite

payments to providers in the government's Medicare and Medicaid

programs, HHS officials said.

"That's certainly what we've been pressing them to do," one

senior official told reporters on a call. Medicare covers

people above 65 and the disabled, and Medicaid is a

federal-state health program for low income people.

The official did not identify the insurers that made the

commitment. A second official said insurance plans committed to

providing loans to Medicaid providers and helping them switch to

other clearing houses, a second official said.

"Claims are starting to flow and we have seen significant

improvement between last week and this week, but we have a last

mile to go," the second official said.

The officials did not provide details on any potential moves

by companies for services to patients covered by private

insurance.

Earlier on Monday, UnitedHealth ( UNH ) said it had advanced

payments of over $2 billion so far to provide assistance to

healthcare providers affected by the hack.