In a very comprehensive post from the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Technology, the FTC takes what it calls “[a] deep dive into the technical side of FTC’s recent cases on digital health platforms, GoodRx & BetterHelp.”
As most readers know, the FTC recently took enforcement action against GoodRx and BetterHelp, two digital healthcare platforms, for allegedly sharing user health data with third parties for advertising.… More
It was my pleasure yesterday to speak at MedInnovation Boston 2018, and deliver a presentation on “The Interplay of HIPAA, Privacy and Data Security Principles, and Health Information Interoperability“. With constantly evolving technology and the new GDPR legal framework. achieving interoperability seems harder than ever. More
On January 4, 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) modified the HIPAA Privacy Rule to expressly permit certain covered entities to disclose to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) the identities of those individuals who, for mental health reasons, already are prohibited by Federal law from having a firearm. According to HHS, “This modification better enables the reporting of the identities of prohibited individuals to the background check system and is an important step toward improving the public’s safety while continuing to strongly protect individuals’… More
It was a pleasure to be on a panel with members of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General last week at the Massachusetts Medical Society to talk about how physicians can protect health information in our presentation entitled: “Protecting Health Information: Health Data Security Training.” We covered the latest in federal law (HIPAA, HITECH) and Massachusetts law. More
In a complaint filed with the FTC on November 23, four advocacy groups asked for "Investigation, Public Disclosure, Injunction, and Other Relief" against several online health giants, including Google, Microsoft, QualityHealth, WebMD, Yahoo, AOL, HealthCentral, Healthline, and Everyday Health.
The advocacy groups behind this complaint are the Center for Digital Democracy,… More