STAT: As states push their own privacy laws, health tech companies fear compliance nightmare

Health tech companies worried that an emerging patchwork of state privacy laws will drive up regulatory costs are joining privacy hardliners in the call for one nationwide standard to govern how they handle patient data. 

Massachusetts legislators advanced a data privacy bill earlier this month, and if it passes, the state will join Virginia, Colorado, and California at the leading edge of enacting their own consumer privacy laws. These — and many measures being discussed in state legislatures around the country — are designed to grant consumers control over the sharing, storage and sale of their data, including the growing ecosystem of health apps that don’t fall under the federal patient privacy law HIPAA. 

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