A member of the House Financial Services Committee has written a letter to Kathleen Kraninger, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Alex Azar, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, calling on the two agencies to get together and make sure that the proposed debt collection rule from the CFPB does not open loopholes that “may place patients’ protected health information at risk.”
The letter, sent last week by Rep. Katie Porter [D-Calif.], seeks information and answers from both federal agencies, especially looking at whether there was any coordination between the two “to ensure that protected health information was kept private and secure.”
Rep. Porter believes there are two potentially “pernicious” areas where individuals may be vulnerable to have their protected health information shared: when collectors are allowed to use social media platforms and text messaging to engage with patients.
The proposed rule’s prohibition against using social media only when it is viewable by a person other than the consumer opens a “loophole” in the form of friend requests or connection requisitions sent on popular social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. Should a collector become connected or friends with a patient on social media, that could possibly be seen by people other than the patient, which may run afoul of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Rep. Porter contends.
“No matter how you slice it, this proposal centers what debt collectors want at the expense of consumers and their privacy,” Rep. Porter said in a statement
