Health Law Advisor

On November 7, 2023, the citizens of the state of Ohio voted to codify reproductive rights, including the right to abortion, in the state constitution.

In 2019, Ohio banned nearly all abortions once fetal cardiac activity was detected (typically around six weeks’ gestation) through its “Heartbeat Law.” Challenges to Ohio’s Heartbeat Law  under Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey prevented it from taking effect until the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization repealed those cases. After Dobbs, Ohio’s “Heartbeat ...

On December 1, 2022, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a bulletin warning that commonly used website technologies, including cookies, pixels, and session replay, may result in the impermissible disclosure of Protected Health Information (“PHI”) to third parties in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”). The bulletin advises that “[r]egulated entities are not permitted to use tracking technologies in a manner that would result in impermissible disclosures of Protected Health Information (“PHI”) to tracking technology vendors or any other violations of the HIPAA Rules.” The bulletin is issued amidst a wider national and international privacy landscape that is increasingly focused on regulating the collection and use of personal information through web-based technologies and software that may not be readily apparent to the user.