According to Tech Digest, OpenAI has officially launched ChatGPT Health in the United States this week. The new feature is designed to help users analyze their personal medical records by integrating with the health data platform b.well. It connects to official electronic medical records, including lab results and clinical notes, as well as popular wellness apps like Apple Health and MyFitnessPal. The company reports that over 230 million people already ask ChatGPT for wellness advice weekly, and this tool aims to make those interactions more accurate. OpenAI emphasizes the tool is for support only, not for diagnosis or treatment. However, the launch has sparked immediate privacy debates, as OpenAI is not a “covered entity” under HIPAA.
The privacy Pandora’s box
Here’s the thing that has privacy advocates like Andrew Crawford from the Center for Democracy and Technology so concerned. Once you voluntarily hand your medical records over to ChatGPT Health, that data basically leaves the protective bubble of HIPAA. OpenAI isn’t a hospital or a doctor’s office, so those strict legal rules about who can see your info and why don’t fully apply anymore. Your data is then governed by OpenAI’s own privacy policy and terms of service. And let’s be real, corporate policies can change. What happens if there’s a data breach? Or if OpenAI decides to share anonymized data with third-party vendors for research? The US doesn’t have a comprehensive federal privacy law, so we’re in a bit of a wild west situation with some of our most sensitive information.
So what’s the actual user proposition?
Putting the big privacy questions aside for a second, what does this actually do? The idea is pretty compelling on the surface. It connects all your disparate health data—your hospital labs, your Apple Watch stats, your Peloton workouts—into one place for an AI to analyze. It could spot long-term patterns, like how your new medication might be affecting your sleep quality tracked by your wearable. The goal is to help you make sense of complex info before a doctor’s appointment. But this is where the “support, not replacement” disclaimer is absolutely critical. I think a lot of people will be tempted to use it for diagnostic hints, which is a dangerous path. It’s a glorified, incredibly smart organizer for your health data. Whether that’s worth the potential privacy trade-off is the million-dollar question.
The broader market and regulatory implications
This launch isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s a direct move into a space where companies like Google and Apple have also been making plays, but with different approaches. The immediate restriction of the feature from the UK and European Economic Area is telling. It screams that GDPR and similar strict regulations are a major hurdle. Basically, OpenAI is testing the waters in the market with the most favorable (or least restrictive) data laws for this kind of aggressive data aggregation. For the healthcare tech market, this raises the stakes significantly. If this takes off, every major tech company will need a similar “health assistant” strategy. But it also puts massive pressure on US lawmakers. How long can they avoid creating a real federal digital privacy framework when AI is now sifting through our clinical notes? The genie isn’t just out of the bottle—it’s reading your medical chart.
