Washington Post: “…There’s a burgeoning business in harvesting our patient data to target us with ultra-personalized ads. Patients who think medical information should come from a doctor — rather than a pharmaceutical marketing department — might not like that. But the good news is, you have the right to say no. I’ll show you what to be on the lookout for. Several Washington Post readers recently wrote to Ask Help Desk about a consent form they were asked to sign while checking in for a doctor’s appointment. Most of us just hurriedly fill out whatever paperwork is put in front of us, but these eagle-eyed readers paused at this: “I hereby authorize my health care provider to release to Phreesia’s check-in system my health information entered during the automated check-in process … to help determine the health-related materials I will receive as part of my use of Phreesia. The health-related materials may include information and advertisements related to treatments and therapies specific to my health status.” Here’s what’s going on: A company called Phreesia makes software used by more than 2,000 clinics and hospitals across the United States to streamline check-ins, replacing the clipboard and photocopied forms with screens on a website or app. The company says it was used for more than 100 million check-ins in the past year. Some patients use Phreesia’s software to do early digital check-in at home, while others use it on a tablet at the clinic. But Phreesia doesn’t just make money by selling its software to doctor’s offices. It also has a business in selling ads to pharmaceutical companies that it displays after you fill in your forms. And it wants to use all that information you entered — what drugs you take, what illnesses you’ve had in the past — to tailor those ads to your specific medical needs…”