Is Your Sleep Apnea Machine Snitching to Your Insurer?

Doctor-ordered data on patients’ heart rates, tracked steps, and breathing or sleep patterns may be shared with insurers and other health companies because of a loophole in the health data privacy law.

The makers of heart monitors, blood glucose meters, and continuous positive airway pressure sleep machines faced backlash in 2018 after media reports said they shared data to third-party companies and insurers without the user’s knowledge.

It may be surprising, but the companies’ use of that data is entirely legal. Those companies aren’t covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, said Jordan T. Cohen, an ...