Uber's growing health arm has teamed up withhealth tech startup Grand Rounds, which works with large,self-insured employers to provide employees witha medical-assistance platform. (Photo: Uber)

Although designed to helpemployers by routing their workers to higher-quality, lower-cost health careproviders, Uber Health's latest partnership may expose thecompanies to certain risks and liabilities, legal expertssaid.

Last month, the ride-hailinggiant's growing health arm announced it has teamed up with healthtech startup Grand Rounds, which works with large, self-insuredemployers to provide employees with a platform that helps them witheverything from getting a second opinion to scheduling appointmentswith appropriate physicians. Now that also includes employees' Uberrides to medical appointments at the expense of the employers andtheir health plans.

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Although Uber Health seeminglyunderstands that the HealthInsurance Portability and Accountability Act regulates its receiptof protected health information and apparentlytakes steps to secure it—operating the platform on its own interface,for example—its transportation services may present issues that arenot immediately apparent, said Diana Maier of employment and privacy law firmMaier Law Group.

Maier cites as an example thecase of a health care worker who escorts a patient in awheelchair from the facility to a waiting Uber vehicle with amessage to the driver that the patient just received chemotherapyand thus is very weak or just had a named procedureand should lie down on the back seat during the ride.Although provided orally, such data qualify as protected healthinformation that would trigger privacy regulations such as HIPAA,she added.   

“There seems to me that there isa risk there,” she said. “If this is going to become the wave ofthe future, the smart route is to train providers about not talkingto the driver about these kinds of matters.” 

Another not-so-obvious issue,Maier said, is the existence of anti-kickback provisions that levycivil, often hefty, monetary fines for fraud and abuse on healthcare providers that offer free transportation to Medicare, Medicaidor Tricare beneficiaries.

Such an issue can be addressed,however, by observing various safeguards that the Office of theInspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and HumanServices included in guidelines about ride-hailing services itissued a couple of years ago.

Maier said that employers can doso by making clear that the free Uber rides are incidental benefitsto use of Grand Rounds' services.

“The biggest thing they wouldwant to [ensure] is that the [free ride] is not the draw but issomething that is offered to employees once they are already usingGrand Rounds,” she said.

Keith Frank, a partner at LongIsland, New York-based Moritt Hock & Hamroff, said issues couldalso arise if there were a vehicle accident en route to anappointment or the driver allegedly engaged in wrongful conducttoward the patient-passenger. For that reason, employers shouldensure that there are contracts in place to protect them fromclaims against the company. 

But Frank added he seespotential problems with the larger issue of any third party—in thiscase, Grand Rounds and Uber—injecting itself into theemployer-employee relationship, namely the risk that employerssomehow learn of employees' medical conditions, knowledge thatcould be used against the company in disability discriminationlawsuits. 

“This opens up a Pandora's box if not properlymanaged,” he said. “There have to be checks in place if employerswant to go down this road. There are risks and liabilities thatemployers could be taking on that they didn't havebefore.”

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