Showing posts filed under: FTC Beat by Drew Barnholtz

March 23, 2020

Allowances Made for COVID-19 Don’t Mean Telehealth Providers and Employers Can Share Protected Information Without Consequences

COVID-19 has become a pervasive concern for everyone. Older Americans are particularly susceptible to contracting COVID-19. On March 17th, the Trump Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the expansion of Medicare beneficiaries’ access to telehealth services during the COVID-19 outbreak. Importantly, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced it… Read More

January 4, 2017

Can Your Pacemaker Be Hacked?

Tom Kellermann, CEO of Strategic Cyber Ventures guest co-authored this post. A famous Homeland episode involved a terrorist gaining access to the Vice-President’s pacemaker.  Accessing medical devices to wreak havoc was one of the motivations behind certain provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (aka the DMCA).  The DMCA makes it “illegal to circumvent technological… Read More

March 21, 2016

To Refer, Or Not To Refer? OIG’s Outdated Health Care Referral Restrictions

The Office of the Inspector General, which enforces Health and Human Services, has long been averse to referral services that don’t meet certain criteria.  To get protection against a possible enforcement action, the referral service can’t exclude anyone from participating in the service, and payments for referrals have to be reasonable and cannot be tied… Read More