Several closely watched court cases are testing how existing legal frameworks governing health data apply to a fast-moving regulatory environment. In Fierce Healthcare’s new special report, Mel Soliz weighed in on the latest disputes poised to shape policy and business across the industry.

Mel shared her take on the growing slate of interoperability lawsuits involving antitrust, information blocking, unfair competition, tortious interference with business relationships, and patient data access, highlighting how controls on health information may raise both compliance and market-access questions. As litigation moves forward, court decisions could give providers, EHR vendors, and health tech companies clearer guidance on how overlapping laws apply to data-sharing practices.

“There can be entirely legitimate reasons to restrict access, including privacy and security,” Mel said. “But the legal question is whether those restrictions are genuinely serving those purposes, or if they’re functioning as competitive leverage.”

More broadly, Mel emphasized that the true impact of these cases may come less from their final outcomes and more from the legal and regulatory guidance that emerges along the way.

Mel’s practice focuses on health data interoperability, privacy, complex data-sharing arrangements, health information networks and exchanges, technology contracting, and related regulatory and litigation risk.

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