Skye Witley reports:
After nearly a year navigating the Biden administration’s efforts to push heath-care providers away from tracking technology that can associate website visitors with specific medical conditions, hospital associations alleged government agencies are still using those same tools in violation of the guidance.
A quartet of hospital associations are challenging a December 2022 US Health and Human Services Department’s bulletin, which stated that information collected by tools used for web browsing analytics and advertising—including Alphabet Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc.’s—could violate the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The complaint, filed on Nov. 2 in a Texas federal court, argues that the bulletin is invalid since it amounted to a sudden policy change without public input, all while the government itself continues to rely on those very same products.
Read more at Bloomberg Law. The case is Am. Hospital Ass’n vs. Fontes Rainer, N.D. Tex., No. 4:23-cv-01110, complaint filed 11/2/23.