Health care and health care-adjacent organizations are seeing a steep increase in risk arising from the frequently utilized third-party analytics and advertising services on their websites, mobile applications, patient portals, and other Internet-connected services. Those organizations should pay attention to new regulatory guidance, published settlements with regulators, and an onslaught of class action filings stemming from their use of third-party services that rely on tracking website and mobile application usage activity. The results of recent settlements with class action plaintiffs and regulators have included bans on disclosing health information for any advertising purposes, long-term regulatory oversight of the organizations’ data sharing practices, and millions of dollars in penalties and payments.

Wendell Bartnick, Nancy Halstead, Angela Matney, and Vicki Tankle discuss why the risk has recently increased, in addition to examining a few considerations for mitigation in this Reed Smith client alert.

Reed Smith will continue to follow the developments in this area. If you have any questions about this or any other healthcare third-party tracker compliance developments, please reach out to the health care lawyers at Reed Smith.