In a new post on the Covington Digital Health blog, our colleagues discuss a recent amendment to California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (“CMIA”) that expands the scope of the law to cover mental health services that are delivered through digital health solutions and the associated health information generated from these services. 

Specifically, AB 2089 amends the definition of “medical information” to include “mental health application information,” defined as “information related to a consumer’s inferred or diagnosed mental health or substance use disorder . . . collected by a mental health digital service.”  “Mental health digital service” is in turn defined to mean “a mobile-based application or internet website that collects mental health application information from a consumer, markets itself as facilitating mental health services to a consumer, and uses the information to facilitate mental health services to a consumer.”  

The post walks through the amendment and explains how the updated language will impact who is required to abide by the CMIA.