The Old, the New, and the Unknown: Consumer Protection Enforcement Activity in Health Care — EnforceMintz

Explore some of the ways in which consumer protection regulators tackled health care issues in 2025, from GLP-1 weight loss drugs to Artificial intelligence (AI) oversight and pricing transparency. Learn what enforcement trends mean for health care companies in 2026. 
 

KEY POINTS:

• GLP-1 enforcement heats up. State attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cracked down on misleading marketing and unapproved GLP-1 weight loss products, signaling ongoing scrutiny of this booming market.
• AI oversight expands at the state level. States are applying existing consumer protection laws and introducing new legislation to address risks posed by AI in health care. Federal guidance remains uncertain.
• Pricing practices under the microscope. State and federal laws targeting “junk fees” and algorithmic pricing and requiring price transparency may impact health care providers, with enforcement expected to grow in 2026.
• What’s ahead for 2026. Expect continued state-led enforcement focused on GLP-1s, AI, and pricing issues, using both traditional frameworks and newly created authorities.

This article is part of EnforceMintz: Healthcare Enforcement Trends in 2025 & 2026 Outlook, a series exploring key developments and practical strategies for health care organizations navigating enforcement risks. Read more articles from EnforceMintz to stay current on enforcement trends and compliance strategies.

As we anticipated in last year’s EnforceMintz, a new administration and a new FTC chairman have resulted in new areas of enforcement at the FTC. Meanwhile, consumer protection units within offices of state attorneys general (State AGs) have largely remained focused on their own enforcement priorities. For example, State AGs (and legislatures) spent time in 2025 on two high-profile health care issues: GLP-1s and artificial intelligence. In this article, we highlight how consumer protection regulators approached these headline-catching issues in 2025 and offer our predictions for what is to come in 2026.

Consumer Protection Regulators Take Aim at GLP-1s

GLP-1s — and businesses offering them — were among the hottest health care topics in 2025. As the GLP-1 market grew in 2025, many State AGs took steps to protect consumers from a variety of consumer protection–related GLP-1 issues, including the use of unapproved products and misleading marketing. For example, in December 2025 the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General (CT OAG) sent cease-and-desist letters to weight-loss spas across Connecticut that were purportedly engaging in false and misleading marketing of GLP-1s. The conduct at issue included, according to the CT OAG, marketing of generic GLP-1s when no generic GLP-1 weight loss injections are currently available on the market, representing compounded GLP-1 injections as FDA-approved when they were not, and suggesting that certain injections had been the subject of clinical trials when no such trials had been completed. The CT OAG has also entered into settlements with entities selling and marketing GLP-1s in Connecticut for similar violations.

The federal government has also taken steps to combat potential GLP-1-related consumer protection violations. The FTC took action against a GLP-1 telemedicine provider this year, issuing a final order that required refunds to consumers and prohibited deceptive practices and representations regarding the cost of telehealth services, unsubstantiated weight loss claims, and promotion of fake or distorted consumer reviews.

States Seek to Protect Consumers as Use of AI in Health Care Continues to Expand

As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care is evolving, regulators are struggling to keep pace. Without cohesive federal legislation governing the development and use of AI, individual states have stepped in and passed their own legislation. We cover these and related developments in our EnforceMintz article “From Innovation to Regulation: Health Care Enforcement Related to AI.”

Some State AGs are applying existing consumer protection laws to protect consumers against AI-related misconduct. For example, in January 2025, the California Office of the Attorney General issued two AI-related advisories, one of which explains how existing California consumer protection authorities apply to “[h]ealthcare-related entities that develop, sell, or use AI systems” (the CA AI Advisory). This advisory observed that “California’s Unfair Competition Law [(UCL)] protects the state’s residents against unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business acts or practices, including business practices used in the practice of medicine” and that this law was intentionally written with “‘broad, sweeping language’ to protect Californians from obvious and familiar forms of fraud and deception as well as new, creative, and cutting-edge forms of misleading behavior.”

The CA AI Advisory further asserts that because “a violation of any other state, federal, or local law is ‘independently actionable’” under the UCL, the UCL “incorporates numerous laws that may apply to AI in a variety of contexts” and thus could be used to take consumer protection enforcement action where AI uses or offerings run afoul of:

• protections against false advertising and anticompetitive practices (including practices described in the separately issued “Legal Advisory on the Application of Existing California Laws to Artificial Intelligence”);
• prohibitions against deceiving and harming consumers by, for example, creating, marketing, or disseminating an AI system that does not comply with civil rights, privacy, false advertising, or competition laws;
• fraud and abuse prohibitions by using AI to generate fraudulent bills or related records, or to prepare claims with improper CPT codes;
• practice of medicine standards, including those that prohibit the delegation of the practice of medicine to AI;
• the prohibition on the practice of medicine by corporations and other “artificial legal entities” through use of AI or other automated decision tools to make decisions about patients’ medical treatment or to override determinations made by licensed health care providers about a patient’s medical needs; and
• limitations imposed on health insurers’ and related entities’ use of AI or other automated decision tools to deny coverage for health care services.

States are also creating new authorities to address consumer protection issues arising from the use of AI in health care. For example, the Utah legislature passed the Artificial Intelligence Policy Act (UAIPA) in 2024, and then amended and narrowed the legislation in 2025. In pertinent part, the UAIPA imposed disclosure obligations on entities using generative AI tools and explicitly articulated that those entities could not escape liability under Utah consumer protection law for statements made or conduct undertaken by generative AI tools. As amended, the UAIPA requires disclosure at the outset of an interaction where generative AI is used only if the use of generative AI constitutes a “high-risk” interaction, which is defined to include interactions where “sensitive personal information” like health data is collected and personalized recommendations that “reasonably could be relied upon to make significant personal decisions,” including those involving health, are made.

Given the myriad uses of AI in health care, we anticipate that 2026 will bring continued state legislation, regulation, and enforcement in this space. It remains to be seen whether and how the FTC will address these same issues.

FTC and State AGs Target Transparency and Affordability

In 2025, the FTC and many State AGs focused on transparency and pricing. For example, in May 2025 the FTC’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect, and many states have passed similar legislation (some states are calling these fees “junk fees”). While the FTC rule applies to “certain unfair or deceptive practices involving fees or charges for live-event tickets and short-term lodging,” some state laws are broadly drafted and may be construed as applying to health care items or services.

Relatedly, in November 2025, New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act took effect. It requires entities using personalized algorithmic pricing or advertising those prices to New York consumers to make certain required disclosures. This statute appears to have broad applicability. While it includes an exception for entities subject to insurance laws, there is no analogous exception applicable to health care providers and companies.

Given their nascency, we have not yet seen how these laws will be applied and enforced. With affordability and pricing transparency top of mind for consumers and government officials alike, we may very well see pricing-related enforcement for health care items and services in the near future.

Conclusion

Looking ahead to 2026, State AGs will likely continue to focus on AI, GLP-1s, and pricing, among many other health care–related issues. We likewise expect that State AGs will continue to use a mix of existing enforcement authorities — and newly created authorities — to combat perceived harm to health care consumers.

Get early access to Part 2 of EnforceMintz

The next edition of EnforceMintz — our annual False Claims Act Statistical Year In Review — will analyze trends in FCA cases using data from DOJ’s recently released annual report on FCA settlements and judgments.

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