Petition to FCC Hopes to Change Certain Health Care Fax Rules Under the TCPA

A new petition has been filed with the FCC by Inovalon, Inc., a healthcare data and technology company. The petition asks the FCC to declare two things:

1. Faxes sent by a health insurance plan’s designee to a patient’s medical provider, pursuant to an established business relationship between the health plan and provider, requesting patient medical records are not advertisements under the TCPA; and
2. Faxes that offer the free collection and/or digitization of patient medical records, and which do not offer any commercially available product or service to the recipients are not advertisements under the TCPA.

Read a copy of the petition here. Learn about telemarketing rules and telemarketing compliance. Contact a telemarketing attorney or TCPA lawyer if you need additional legal counsel.

Telephone Dialing System Found Not to be an ATDS

In Ferrer v. Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC, plaintiff Maria Ferrer alleged, among other things, that Bayview used an ATDS to call her cell phone 44 times. The Southern District of Florida has found that the system used by Bayview to make the calls to the plaintiff was not an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) because it requires call-by-call human intervention. The system used by the defendants was the Avaya X1 platform. Read the court's order granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants here. Learn more about the ATDS definition and Robocall laws.

Zacks Investment Research Inc. Settles TCPA Class Action Settlement

Zacks Investment Management Inc. (Zacks Investment) has agreed to settle a TCPA class action lawsuit for $5.38 million. The plaintiffs in the case alleged that Zacks Investment and their marketing partners made unsolicited calls to consumers in order to sell books and seminar tickets. They also allege that Zacks Investments recorded calls with California consumers without their consent, which is a violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Marketers should make sure that they have the proper consent to make and record marketing phone calls to consumers. Read more here. Contact a telemarketing attorney or TCPA lawyer if you need additional legal consulting to help with the TCPA lawsuit you are facing.

Florida Bill Would Classify Ringless Voicemail Drops as Telephone Solicitations

A proposed Florida bill would regulate ringless voicemail by expanding the definition of a "telephonic sales call" to include "voicemail transmissions." As defined in the bill, "voicemail transmissions" are "technologies that deliver a voice message directly to a voicemail application, service, or device." Read the full text of the bill here. Learn about additional telemarketing rules and telemarketing regulations.