{"id":3837,"date":"2023-03-27T14:40:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-27T14:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/?p=3837"},"modified":"2023-03-27T14:40:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T14:40:30","slug":"global-ftc-cracking-down-on-telehealth-apps-and-data-sharing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/global-ftc-cracking-down-on-telehealth-apps-and-data-sharing\/","title":{"rendered":"Global: FTC Cracking Down on Telehealth Apps and Data Sharing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Trade Commission<\/a> (FTC) wants telehealth firms to improve their data-sharing practices.<\/p>\n

The commission is particularly focused on companies that use customer data without disclosing the practice to their users, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported<\/a>Sunday (March 26, 2023). It\u2019s a campaign that\u2019s happening amid increased consumer use of telehealth services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very concerned by how easy it is for consumers to hand over their most sensitive information,\u201d Miles Plant<\/a>, the FTC\u2019s senior privacy and data security attorney, told the WSJ.<\/p>\n

He added that the FTC wants to ensure \u201cthese companies are honest and transparent about what they\u2019re collecting, what they\u2019re using it for and who they\u2019re disclosing it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those companies is BetterHelp<\/a>, a teletherapy provider that the FTC banned<\/a> from sharing consumer health data earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that many consumers mistakenly think the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, will protect their information in every case, said Nicholson Price, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.<\/p>\n

\u201cHIPAA really doesn\u2019t reach apps or places where patients share their own information,\u201d Price said in a WSJ interview. \u201cSo that\u2019s generally not preventing companies or app developers from sharing or selling or licensing this sort of data.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crackdown is happening at a time when consumers are increasingly using telehealth. Research\u00a0shows that 47% of patients used telehealth services for the first time during the pandemic, compared to just 17% who had done so before the pandemic.<\/p>\n

In addition to data issues, these patients also often find themselves dealing with a payment system that\u2019s extremely complex, according to the \u201cTelehealth Digital Payments Report,\u201d a collaboration between PYMNTS and American Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report found that providers can improve the payment process for telehealth services by increasing its transparency, providing them with payment choice and payment plans, allowing payments through a website, and deploying payment innovations that make telehealth access and bill payment easier for patients.<\/p>\n

Patients have a range of different preferences when it comes to paying for medical appointments and procedures, for example, with half paying after the procedure, 20% paying during the visit and 18% paying prior to the visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants telehealth firms to improve their data-sharing practices. The commission is particularly focused on companies that use customer data without disclosing the practice to their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[73,80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/B1E58F49-C1AD-4EC8-A6EB-050B12A40AC5.jpeg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3839,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3837\/revisions\/3839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regtechafrica.com\/healthcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}