{"id":208052,"date":"2026-01-30T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/popular-online-lab-tests-may-not-be-covered-by-hipaa-protections\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T04:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T09:55:09","slug":"popular-online-lab-tests-may-not-be-covered-by-hipaa-protections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/popular-online-lab-tests-may-not-be-covered-by-hipaa-protections\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular online lab tests may not be covered by HIPAA protections"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/01\/30\/direct-to-consumer-health-tests-face-patient-privacy-questions\/\">Popular online lab tests may not be covered by HIPAA protections<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/01\/30\/direct-to-consumer-health-tests-face-patient-privacy-questions\/\">https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/01\/30\/direct-to-consumer-health-tests-face-patient-privacy-questions\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-01-30 04:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.statnews.com\">www.statnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As more Americans sidestep doctors\u2019 offices to order lab tests and genetic screenings online, privacy experts warn that the new trove of sensitive health data could end up in the hands of companies selling certain types of insurance, lenders, employers, or law enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Patients\u2019 health data are typically protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. But that federal law only applies to hospitals, physician practices, and other entities involved in coordinating or paying for patient care. The new breed of startups that sell blood panels and genetic tests \u2014 typically not covered by health insurance \u2014 directly to consumers aren\u2019t always considered medical providers as defined by the law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese tests kind of feel like medical tests, but they may not always be covered by HIPAA,\u201d said Anna Wexler, an assistant professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied direct-to-consumer health companies\u2019 privacy practices.\u00a0\u201cMany of these companies do exist outside of the traditional medical environment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As more people rush to direct-to-consumer health tests driven by a desire to catch cancer before symptoms emerge or to find out if they are at risk for Alzheimer\u2019s, experts say it\u2019s conceivable that banks and insurers could use any health data they can to mitigate their own risks. That could impact financial products such as loans, life insurance, short-term health insurance used by gig workers and those between jobs, and long-term health insurance that pays for nursing home stays.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you don\u2019t agree [to share the data], you don\u2019t get the policy, you don\u2019t get the bank loan, whatever you\u2019re applying toward,\u201d said Mark Rothstein, director of translational bioethics at UC Irvine.<\/p>\n<p>Function Health, for example, which offers over 100 tests for an annual subscription fee of $365, says on its website that it is \u201cnot a laboratory or medical provider.\u201d The&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/01\/30\/direct-to-consumer-health-tests-face-patient-privacy-questions\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Popular online lab tests may not be covered by HIPAA protections https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/01\/30\/direct-to-consumer-health-tests-face-patient-privacy-questions\/ Publish Date: 2026-01-30&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/F0441924-DNA_data_conceptual_image-1024x576.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208054,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208052\/revisions\/208054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}