What exactly is the concern here by Headway? Are they afraid AI deep fakes will be receiving therapy?
Obviously they are doing data collection and selling training data of emotional conversations to AI labs. But what's their stated justification? I can't figure it out.
The risk is that a drug dealer or addict pays people to use their identities and possibly insurance info, pretends to be them and to have ADHD in telehealth sessions, and stockpiles Adderall.
Yeah this feels like an over-excited nothingburger from 404. Of course you need to verify who the hell you're going to write an electronic prescription for a controlled substance is actually who they say they are.
It's literally just a government ID check/liveliness check. In this case... it's needed.
Government-issued IDs work and human verification of them is largely successful. This is not about correct verification, it’s about cheap machine-based verification. The dehumanization of it is part of how they plan to make money.
So yes verification is needed. We can do that just fine without more facial recognition intruding into everyday affairs.
I was trying to think what the least intrusive option here would be. You need to verify that the patient has ID matching their name and face, which could be done offline by a notary or other trusted party if a patient prefers.
But you also need to confirm the person showing up for the online sessions is actually the verified patient, and I'm not sure how you do that to maximize privacy. I guess you could take a photo at the in-person verification, have the medical provider sign off that it's the same person as their patient, and then destroy the photo?
Then they can go find another shitty online pill mill with sketchy-ass "noctor" NPs to go write the scripts for their legal meth. Just like we've done with Viagra and Ozempic and ketamine.
You sound condescending but each of those substances is currently positively life changing to MILLIONS of people every day.
Viagra can give you your sex life back, ozempic can give you a healthy body again and ketamin and legal meth can return you to being a functional and happy human.
and each of these substances is widely mis-prescribed, abused and has huge illegal markets. Just because the OP obviously referred to this scenario doesn't mean they discounted your interpretation of big pharma. Also since you want to promote a super narrow perspective, Ozempic is a type-2 diabetes drug that has pivoted to the more lucrative weight-lose market and Viagra a pretty ho-hum hypertension drug that makes a better boner pill, so your takes are technically "side-effects"
Every user of Headway is required to submit to this, regardless of medication status, or they lose access to the platform (and their therapist).
HN has come a long way if we’re considering it a nothing burger that sending scans of your face to a 3rd party verification company is required to not lose access to your healthcare provider.
This has been a solved problem for some time now. There are already third party solutions for this based around verifying government issued ID cards and therapist attestation of who they visited with in their notes.
Some people lie about identity when getting mental health. They also direct pay cash, and no insurance.
Pilots and US govt cleared people go through hell, or get their permissions revoked if you try to get mental health. So the answer is to pay out of pocket and lie.
HOWEVER with Peter Thiel's invasive facial recog shit being forced means that even if you want to remain anonymous, now you cant.
As for misappropriation of drugs, that can also easily happen in person. Some Thielian shit isnt going to stop that.
Meanwhile, on Hims, you fill out a form prior to meeting with the physician via a text-only chat. And if you filled it out "wrong", then the physician tells you that if these were your final answers, you wouldn't meet criteria, but if you had, say, answered x instead of y for q3 and b instead of c for q5, you can get the meds. "Would you like to review your answers for a few minutes?"
TL:DR - Regulations are changing / unclear around prescribing medications online and this is them trying to get ahead of it.
Headway’s new facial-scan requirement is probably less about one company getting weird with biometrics and more about where telehealth regulation is heading: with COVID-era prescribing flexibilities, companies like Done abused controlled substance prescribing to the point that the DEA is now signaling that they will demand stronger identity proofing for controlled-substance prescribing.
But the implementation matters. Could you do all this through other means? Definitely. Would it scale as easily / get in Peter Thiel and VC's good graces by using their tool? Who knows.
All to say this is probably more about changing regulations in how care is provided online - and more companies should be expected to follow suit when it comes to prescribing controlled substances.
What seems more likely for a startup doing online mental health to collect biometric data? 1. "getting ahead" of potentially changing regulations. 2. collecting data they don't need because it's (a) easier and (b) never know when you'll need it!
Surely this would affect all online prescribers and third party certification companies, who have been using government ID card verification for years.
I don't think biometric data is necessary at all here.
What if the organization who tries to verify sends a request on an app on the user’s iPhone (or whatever device can do the same), and the user scans their face with FaceID to produce a file send to the organization, which will then send that file to Apple to ask if the file represents the right person? I trust Apple so that works for me.
Don't trust these people with your mental health data.
Obviously they are doing data collection and selling training data of emotional conversations to AI labs. But what's their stated justification? I can't figure it out.
They mention heightened scrutiny around controlled substances (with amphetamines for ADHD as an example) on the FAQ. https://help.headway.co/hc/en-us/articles/29673299878676-Doc...
The risk is that a drug dealer or addict pays people to use their identities and possibly insurance info, pretends to be them and to have ADHD in telehealth sessions, and stockpiles Adderall.
It's literally just a government ID check/liveliness check. In this case... it's needed.
So yes verification is needed. We can do that just fine without more facial recognition intruding into everyday affairs.
But you also need to confirm the person showing up for the online sessions is actually the verified patient, and I'm not sure how you do that to maximize privacy. I guess you could take a photo at the in-person verification, have the medical provider sign off that it's the same person as their patient, and then destroy the photo?
You sound condescending but each of those substances is currently positively life changing to MILLIONS of people every day.
Viagra can give you your sex life back, ozempic can give you a healthy body again and ketamin and legal meth can return you to being a functional and happy human.
HN has come a long way if we’re considering it a nothing burger that sending scans of your face to a 3rd party verification company is required to not lose access to your healthcare provider.
Biometric data isn't needed at all.
Pilots and US govt cleared people go through hell, or get their permissions revoked if you try to get mental health. So the answer is to pay out of pocket and lie.
HOWEVER with Peter Thiel's invasive facial recog shit being forced means that even if you want to remain anonymous, now you cant.
As for misappropriation of drugs, that can also easily happen in person. Some Thielian shit isnt going to stop that.
TL:DR - Regulations are changing / unclear around prescribing medications online and this is them trying to get ahead of it.
Headway’s new facial-scan requirement is probably less about one company getting weird with biometrics and more about where telehealth regulation is heading: with COVID-era prescribing flexibilities, companies like Done abused controlled substance prescribing to the point that the DEA is now signaling that they will demand stronger identity proofing for controlled-substance prescribing.
But the implementation matters. Could you do all this through other means? Definitely. Would it scale as easily / get in Peter Thiel and VC's good graces by using their tool? Who knows.
All to say this is probably more about changing regulations in how care is provided online - and more companies should be expected to follow suit when it comes to prescribing controlled substances.
I don't think biometric data is necessary at all here.