March 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. government said on Friday it has urged states to make interim payments to healthcare providers that were hit by the cyberattack at UnitedHealth's unit Change Healthcare.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) new guidance allows states to start making interim payments retroactively to the date when claims payment processing was disrupted due to the cybersecurity incident, the federal agency said. (Reporting by Leroy Leo and Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)