Records between GuardDog and Health Gorilla confirm that GuardDog always represented its services as being for treatment purposes
CORAL GABLES, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Health Gorilla today released materials demonstrating that GuardDog always represented to Health Gorilla that its services were for treatment purposes. The materials in question are a 2025 case study that GuardDog developed with Health Gorilla, which was meant to be released for marketing purposes for both companies. The case study reflects GuardDog’s continuing description over a period of years that its services were for treatment purposes, because it represented itself as a telehealth provider supporting patients through clinical care delivery, including chronic care management and coordination with other healthcare providers.
In addition to this case study, Health Gorilla also has 21 recorded meetings between the parties, conducted between July 2024 and November 2025, where GuardDog consistently made the same claims. Health Gorilla also has many more emails and other communications with the same representations.
Across Health Gorilla and GuardDog’s recorded sessions, GuardDog consistently described its services as telehealth care focused on chronic condition management, preventative care, and patient treatment workflows. GuardDog representatives outlined how clinicians would retrieve and review patient records, develop treatment plans, manage chronic conditions, and conduct ongoing patient monitoring and follow-up care. Their discussions also included network shareback expectations through clinical documentation generated during patient encounters. To be clear, Health Gorilla does not request, access or review patient health information; it simply provides the infrastructure for endpoints to access health data.
“Since GuardDog stipulated to judgment with Epic and its co-plaintiffs, I have seen some reports incorrectly suggest that GuardDog’s services were not for treatment purposes,” said Justine Hanna, co-owner of GuardDog. “To be clear, GuardDog always believed and continues to maintain that its services were for treatment purposes, including when GuardDog sent records to law firms. The patients whose records we queried provided HIPAA authorizations and we understood that the reason for querying their records was to assist in providing treatment to each patient, regardless of whether the patient had hired a law firm to represent them. We always represented to Health Gorilla that our services were for treatment purposes and they were.”
Health Gorilla relied on GuardDog’s representations in good faith as part of its standard onboarding and implementation processes, which are designed to support legitimate treatment-based data exchange across national interoperability frameworks. Health Gorilla did not receive prior notice of statements made by GuardDog in its recent consent judgment.
“As Ms. Hanna confirms, GuardDog repeatedly asserted it was engaged in treatment purpose queries,” said Bob Watson, Chairman & CEO of Health Gorilla. “Reading the consent judgment carefully, GuardDog did not state it ever informed Health Gorilla of any non-treatment use of patient information and we appreciate her helping set the record straight. The case study Health Gorilla is releasing confirms that GuardDog’s consent judgment, which has no legal impact on Health Gorilla, does not provide a complete picture of the facts.”
Health Gorilla continues to fully comply with all applicable data-sharing frameworks and remains confident as it addresses these claims through the legal processes. Health Gorilla is committed to transparency, patient privacy, and the responsible advancement of nationwide interoperability. The company continues to support appropriate oversight and due process to ensure trust across the healthcare ecosystem.
The GuardDog case study is available here.
About Health Gorilla
Health Gorilla, a designated Qualified Health Information Network under TEFCA, provides interoperability solutions delivering secure, real-time access to deduplicated, AI-ready health data. Health Gorilla supports EHR vendors, value-based care organizations, and digital health innovators with data-driven workflows that enable more informed, connected, and efficient care.
Click here to learn how Health Gorilla helps organizations access and exchange patient data securely.
Contacts
Media Contact:
Mickey Sundermann
ROKK Solutions for Health Gorilla
mickey@rokksolutions.com
515-710-1328
