Health Law Advisor

Consumer privacy protection continues to be top of mind for regulators given a climate where technology companies face scrutiny for lax data governance and poor data stewardship.  Less than a year ago, California passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) of 2018, to strengthen its privacy laws.  In many regards, the CCPA served as a watershed moment in privacy due to its breadth and similarities to the E.U. sweeping General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law.

Yet, California continues to push the envelope further.  Recently, California State Senator Jackson and Attorney ...

The Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) for the Department of Health and Human Services recently issued an Advisory Opinion that provides insight into how the agency evaluates arrangements that deal with the integration of technology, medicine, and patient monitoring under the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”). In Advisory Opinion No. 19-02, OIG evaluated whether a pharmaceutical manufacturer could temporarily loan a limited-functionality smartphone to financially needy patients enrolled in federal health care programs. OIG concluded that the proposed ...

One well-recognized way to protect patient privacy is to de-identify health data.  However, trends around increases in publicly-available personal data, data linking and aggregation, big data analytics, and computing power are challenging traditional de-identification models.  While traditional de-identification techniques may mitigate privacy risk, the possibility remains that such data may be coupled with other information to reveal the identity of the individual.

Last month, a JAMA article demonstrated that an artificial intelligence algorithm could re-identify ...

On February 15, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) finalized two guidance documents regarding regenerative medicine therapies (see FDA’s announcement here). This development comes nearly 14 months after FDA issued both guidance documents in draft form, which also coincided with FDA’s announcement of a new comprehensive regenerative medicine policy framework intended to spur innovation and efficient access to new regenerative medicine products.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb remarked that the finalization of regenerative therapy guidance ...

On February 11th, blockchain advocates, digital health enthusiasts, and patients received positive news from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (“ONC”) regarding patient data sharing.  These rules, taken together, seek to make data more liquid, which can promote patient access, continuity of care, research, collaboration across the industry and several other activities that previously faced challenges within a health care system built on data silos.

First, CMS ...

The New York City Commission on Human Rights published legal enforcement guidance defining an individual’s right to wear “natural hair, treated or untreated hairstyles such a locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, fades, Afros, and/or the right to keep hair in an uncut or untrimmed state.”   The guidance applies to workplace grooming and appearance policies “that ban, limit, or otherwise restrict natural hair or hairstyles”:

[W]hile an employer can impose requirements around maintaining a work appropriate appearance, [employers] cannot enforce such ...

GenomeDx Biosciences Corp., which markets a genomic test (Decipher®) intended to assess the aggressiveness of prostate cancer, has agreed to pay $1.99 million to the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 3729 et seq.)(“FCA”) by submitting claims to Medicare for tests conducted to evaluate treatment options for men after prostate surgery.

The government and a whistleblower alleged that between September 2015 and June 2017, GenomeDx knowingly submitted Medicare reimbursement claims for the Decipher® test ...

Gummies, brownies, sodas, cookies . . . consumer appetite for food and dietary supplement products containing cannabidiol (“CBD”) has grown over the last few years as states have moved to legalize cannabis for medical or limited recreational use.  With the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill on December 20, 2018, which legalized the cultivation of hemp for certain purposes, the “edibles” industry appeared poised for further expansion.

However, recent developments at both the federal and state level may be putting the “edibles” industry on a diet.  In the past week, bans on the ...

The telehealth industry has experienced constant developments in the regulatory landscape at both the federal and state level over the past several years, and we are confident these changes will continue into 2019 as the utilization of telehealth services continues to evolve and mature. A notable area of activity is how regulators, are approaching the telehealth industry, in particular remote prescribing applications of this platform.

On the federal level, we should expect to see promulgation of regulations by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration outlining the special ...

There is a new kid on the block . . . the Chief Data Officer (CDO).  There is no surprise in our data-driven world that such a role would exist. Yet, many organizations struggle with defining the role and value of the CDO. Effective implementation of a CDO may be informed by other historical evolutions in the C-Suite.

Examining the rise of the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) in the 2000’s mirrors some of the same frustrations that organizations faced when implementing the CCO role. While organizations were accustomed to having legal, HR, and internal audit departments working together to ...