Uber is Driving Patients to Their Doctors in a Big Grab for Medical Transit Market
Carlton Fields health care attorneys Erica Mallon and Elizabeth Scarola wrote an AHLA Weekly article, “Offering Ridesharing Services to Patients: Uber Risky?” that was cited in The Verge story, “Uber is Driving Patients to The Doctors in a Big Grab for Medical Transit Market.”
The ridesharing company recently launched Uber Health, an app that allows patients to book rides to and from their appointments, as part of a move to provide customers with cheaper and more reliable options that other non-emergency medical transportation – a market worth more than $3 billion, according to the Transit Cooperative Research Program.
In 2016, Uber partnered with the company Circulation to provide rides for patients to more than 700 participating health facilities in 25 states. Rival Lyft has also partnered with Circulation.
Uber has said that Uber Health is compliant with the federal rules on data privacy in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
In their article, Mallon and Scarola discussed the implications of this growing ridesharing trend and data privacy.
“Even if a platform is HIPAA-compliant, providers risk potential imposition of stiff penalties for data breaches, and business associate agreements should be implemented between providers and ridesharing companies,” they wrote.