Health Law Advisor

New York State appears poised to become the fourth state to explicitly regulate consumer health data not covered by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In May of 2023, Washington State enacted the My Health My Data Act; in June of 2023, Connecticut amended its Data Privacy Act; and in March of 2024, Nevada passed Senate Bill 370. In many respects, NY HIPA is broader in scope and effect than its three predecessors.

New York’s S929 (Health Information Privacy Act or NY HIPA), sponsored by state Senator Liz Krueger (D), establishes requirements for communications to individuals regarding the disposition of their health information; and requires written consent or a designated necessary purpose for the processing of such health information. NY HIPA addresses vulnerabilities unaddressed by HIPAA because it applies to a broader range of private companies and protects health information at risk of disclosure through the commercialization of health data.

From our Thought Leaders in Health Law video series: The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to eliminate the federal constitutional right to abortion continues to alter the legal landscape across the country.

On April 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights published a final rule entitled the “HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy” (the “Final Rule”).

The Final Rule—amending the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (the “Privacy Rule”) under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), as well as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009—strengthens privacy protections related to the use and disclosure of reproductive health care information. HIPAA’s Privacy Rule limits the disclosure of protected health information (PHI) and is part of HHS’s efforts to ensure that patients will not be afraid to seek health care from, or share important information with, health care providers.

What are the key takeaways from the Final Rule?

In this episode of the Diagnosing Health Care Podcast:  The vaccine passport has been a major topic of discussion as businesses and governments consider how to balance privacy and safety through the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. Epstein Becker Green attorneys Patricia Wagner, Alaap Shah, and Jessika Tuazon discuss the privacy and security concerns companies must weigh as they consider developing or implementing vaccine passports, such as the collection and use of an individual's personal health information. As state governments and the private sector take the ...

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 ...