UPenn Health Privacy Researcher Dr. Ari Friedman on STAT and The Markup’s new report detailing the data telehealth startups are sharing with advertisers.

Telehealth

Telehealth Startups Sharing Patient Data

An absolute firework show of a joint report between STAT and The Markup cast a spotlight on telehealth companies sharing sensitive patient information with advertisers, and it definitely wasn’t a good look for some of the biggest names in the space. 

Over the past few months, STAT and The Markup created accounts and completed onboarding forms on 50 telehealth sites (most major players, notably excluding Teladoc/BetterHelp), then tracked what data was being shared with advertisers such as Google, Facebook, and TikTok.

Of the 50 telehealth websites analyzed, advertisers received information from:

• URLs users visited – 49 sites
• Personal info (name, email, phone) – 35 sites
• When user initiated checkout – 19 sites
• User’s answers to questionnaires – 13 sites
• When user added to cart – 11 sites
• When user created an account – 9 sites

Yikes. One of the stats that stands out the most is the fact that 13 of the websites shared patients’ answers to medical intake questions, such as their migraine frequency or substance use history. All but one of the sites shared the URLs that users visited – gold star for Amazon Clinic – but most of the websites shared information with multiple advertisers. 

Here’s how many of the sites shared data with each advertiser:

• Google – 47 sites
• Facebook – 44 sites 
• TikTok – 23 sites
• Snapchat – 15 sites
• LinkedIn – 9 sites
• Twitter – 7 sites

You can find the full list of telehealth platforms and the information they shared roughly a third of the way down the report, and the authors were even kind enough to provide a cringe worthy round up of each company’s response. 

The Takeaway

Telehealth companies often act as middlemen between the patients and providers covered under HIPAA, rather than delivering care themselves, which results in limited protections for the sensitive information they collect.

Most patients probably assume that their health data is always protected, and many of them turn to online solutions for more privacy in the first place. The end of STAT and The Markup’s report included thousands of words from privacy experts and regulators, nearly all of them agreeing that protections like HIPAA need to be reformed for the telehealth era.

Only protecting sensitive information in certain settings is clearly starting to feel out of step with the times, especially when advertisers have the answers to your health intake forms.

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The Wire

• The State of Care at Home: Current Health just put out one of the best reports we’ve seen to-date on the trends, challenges, and growth potential of the remote care landscape. The full report is easy on the eyes and definitely worth checking out, especially the breakdown on page four that looks at how providers are planning to implement different care-at-home use cases. It looks like a majority of organizations are planning to build post-acute programs in-house, while most of those looking into chronic care management are evaluating outside solutions.

• MCCPDC Enters Employer Market: Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company is partnering with pharmacy benefits manager EmsanaRx to launch a new EmsanaRx Plus platform designed to provide employees with medicines that have been contracted directly with manufacturers. The move marks MCCPDC’s first foray into the employer market, but adds to previous partnerships with PBM Rightway Health and Capital Blue Cross.

• Gustave Roussy Integrates Synapse: Leading European cancer center Gustave Roussy Institute recently implemented Synapse Medicine’s medicine reconciliation platform to prevent the risk of adverse drug events throughout the care journey. The Synapse Platform and UI components are used to prescribe, dispense, and manage medications, streamlining the workflow of care teams while supporting medical decision-making and follow-ups.

• Open Sourcing Transparency Data: One Fact Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that’s setting out to open source all hospital cost transparency data and negotiated rates. It recently published a crowdsourced database of 5k URLs, and is replicating some of the analysis getting layered on top of the data by VC-backed startups like Turquoise Health through its compliance hub. If hitting #1 on Hacker News is any indicator, the developer community seems pretty excited to have easier access to this information.

• Prioritizing Health and Wellbeing: Medifast released findings from a survey of 2k Americans highlighting how health and wellbeing will remain a top priority even during tough economic conditions. Heading into 2023, 57% of the respondents plan to spend more time on their health and wellbeing, and would rather cut spending on shopping (70%), entertainment (59%), and food (58%), than their health (23%).

• HHS Online Tracking Tool Guidance: The HHS got ahead of STAT and The Markup by releasing a set of guidelines for online tracking tools to ensure all necessary requirements are being followed when interacting with entities covered under HIPAA. The guidelines highlight the obligations of online tracking technologies, such as when HIPAA-compliant authorizations for tracking pixels are required, and clarify that a notice of pixel use doesn’t permit disclosure of protected health information. 

• Pebble Health Launch: Pebble Health made its debut with $12M in seed funding as it looks to scale its health benefits platform for small employers with under 500 employees. Pebble provides health plans tailored for small businesses while working with third-party providers to fill gaps left in employers’ negotiated packages such as mental health or fertility care.

• Hello Heart’s Hypertension Findings: Digital therapeutic startup Hello Heart announced results from a 6k-person study on how minor lifestyle and behavioral changes can improve heart health. An average increase of only 34 minutes of walking/week (an extra five minute walk/day) was associated with a clinically significant 8.7 mmHg decrease in systolic BP over a 6 month period. Hello Heart leverages AI to help people draw connections between their lifestyle choices and their heart health.

• Ostro Raises $45M: Patient engagement startup Ostro raised $45M in fresh funding to expand the reach of its tools that help providers explain medical products and drugs to patients. Ostro, formerly known as RxDefine, said that the rebranding reflects a widening of its focus from only pharmaceuticals to medical devices and digital therapeutics. The Ostro solution suite now includes Ostro Navigate (personalized care journey support), Ostro Attribute (connects brand marketing campaigns to clinical outcomes), and Ostro Consult (connects patients to telehealth clinicians).

• Food Insecurity & Healthcare Utilization: A new WellSky report revealed that addressing food insecurity can reduce healthcare utilization by over 30%. A case study detailing Pennsylvania-based Reading Hospital’s roll out of the WellSky Social Care Coordination platform found that among 747 patients with resolved food needs, there was a decrease in hospital admissions (32%), hospital costs (31%), and readmissions (30%). 

• LetsGetChecked & PatientsLikeMe: LetsGetChecked is partnering with community health network PatientsLikeMe to bring its members access to at-home testing services. PLM members will now be able to use LetsGetChecked’s suite of offerings through their patient platform (diagnostic testing, virtual consultations, medication delivery).

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