Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS: Practice Fusion settles FTC charges it deceived consumers about privacy of provider reviews, (Jun 8, 2016)
Organizations Mentioned:Practice Fusion, Inc.
By Michael Menzhuber, J.D., LL.M.
Practice Fusion, a cloud-based electronic health record company, has agreed to settle FTC charges that it misled consumers by soliciting reviews for their doctors, without adequately disclosing that their reviews would be publicly posted on the Internet, the agency announced today (In the Matter of Practice Fusion, Inc., FTC File No. 142 3039).
The FTC complaint alleges that, in order to populate its new public-facing healthcare provider directory, Practice Fusion sent emails to patients of healthcare providers, utilizing its electronic health records service. The email, which appeared to be sent on behalf of the patients’ doctors, asked consumers to rate their provider to help improve service in the future. Consumers who clicked on the five-star rating image in the email were taken to an online survey form with questions about their recent medical visit. Because patients thought the information was only shared with their provider, many of them included personal identification and personal health information in survey’s text box.
The proposed settlement provides that Practice Fusion will be:
prohibited from misrepresenting the extent to which it uses, maintains, and protects the privacy or confidentiality of data it collects;
required, prior to making consumer information publicly available, to clearly and conspicuously disclose (separate and apart from a privacy policy, terms of use or other similar document) that it is making such information publicly available and obtain consumers’ affirmative consent; and
prohibited from publicly displaying reviews it collected from consumers during the time period covered by the complaint.
The FTC will publish a description of the consent agreement package in the Federal Register. The agreement will be subject to public comment for 30 days, beginning June 8, 2016 and continuing through July 8, 2016.
News: ConsumerProtection Privacy FederalTradeCommissionNews