Comment by imglorp
This is a frustrating conversation.
It appears that anonymized data medical data are being sold en masse by providers (*) because money. But it's also obvious to us tech folk how trivial it is to combine anonymized patient encounters with location and credit card purchase data etc to de-anonymize it and resell as enriched.
So the only people who are effectively bound by HIPAA are the well-intentioned ones who have to protect themselves and and comply; the rest are laughing at them on the way to the bank.
* https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/23/22547397/medical-records-...
* https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-data-brokers-...
* https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/who-profits-our-medica...
> the rest are laughing at them on the way to the bank.
My understanding is that HIPAA is intended to stop providers from colluding against the patient, not to stop providers or middlemen from enriching themselves with our data.