The Northwell Health Pixel Tracking Settlement offers cash payments of $15.00 and free privacy monitoring to patients whose health information was allegedly shared with Meta and Google through tracking code embedded on Northwell’s website and patient portal. The case, Kaplan v. Northwell Health, Inc. (Case No. 520763/2025), centers on claims that Northwell used Meta Pixel and Google Analytics in ways that disclosed personally identifiable information and protected health information — including details about medical appointments and health conditions — to third parties without patient consent.
If you used Northwell’s FollowMyHealth patient portal or booked an appointment on their website between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2023, you may be entitled to a cash payment plus 12 months of privacy monitoring. Other Northwell patients during a slightly broader window can still receive the monitoring benefit. The claim deadline is April 20, 2026, and you can file online at nwpixelsettlement.com using the Notice ID and PIN from your email notification. For example, if you logged into your FollowMyHealth portal in 2021 to check lab results or schedule a follow-up, your browsing data may have been transmitted to Facebook and Google — and this settlement is designed to compensate you for that privacy violation.
Table of Contents
- What Is the Northwell Health Pixel Tracking Settlement and Why Does It Matter?
- Who Qualifies for the Settlement — And Who Gets Paid More?
- What Information Was Actually Exposed Through the Tracking Pixels?
- How to File Your Claim Before the April 20, 2026 Deadline
- Opt-Out and Objection Rights — What You Give Up by Filing a Claim
- The Privacy Monitoring Benefit and What It Actually Covers
- What This Settlement Signals for Healthcare Privacy Going Forward
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Northwell Health Pixel Tracking Settlement and Why Does It Matter?
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Kings (Brooklyn), alleging that northwell Health — a nonprofit integrated healthcare network serving patients across New York and Connecticut — installed Meta pixel and Google Analytics tracking technologies on its public website and its FollowMyHealth patient portal. These tools are widely used across the internet for advertising and analytics purposes, but on a healthcare website, they allegedly captured and transmitted sensitive data that most patients never agreed to share. According to the complaint, the information disclosed included past, present, and future health conditions, the type and date of medical appointments, and data that could be tied back to specific individuals through Facebook IDs and IP addresses. This case fits into a much larger wave of healthcare pixel tracking lawsuits that have swept the country since 2022, when a investigation revealed that hundreds of hospitals were running Meta Pixel on pages where patients entered sensitive information.
What makes the Northwell case notable is the scale — Northwell is one of the largest health systems in New York — and the fact that the tracking allegedly extended to the patient portal, not just the public-facing appointment booking pages. The difference matters because portal users were likely sharing far more granular health data, which is why the settlement distinguishes between two subclasses with different compensation levels. Compared to some other healthcare pixel settlements that have offered only credit monitoring or injunctive relief, the Northwell settlement does include a direct cash component for the most affected group. That said, $15.00 per person is on the lower end of individual payouts in privacy litigation, which reflects the challenge of quantifying damages when the harm is an unauthorized data disclosure rather than, say, fraudulent charges on a credit card.
Who Qualifies for the Settlement — And Who Gets Paid More?
The settlement divides eligible class members into two subclasses, and which one you fall into determines whether you receive a cash payment or only privacy monitoring. Settlement Subclass 1 includes patients who logged into Northwell’s FollowMyHealth patient portal between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2023, or who booked an appointment on Northwell’s website during that same period. Members of this subclass receive $15.00 per person plus a 12-month subscription to privacy monitoring services. Settlement Subclass 2 covers all other Northwell patients between January 1, 2020 and July 25, 2024, who are not already in Subclass 1. This group receives only the 12-month privacy monitoring subscription — no cash. The logic behind the split is straightforward: patients who directly interacted with the portal or booking system were more likely to have had detailed health information captured by the tracking pixels.
Someone who merely visited a general information page on Northwell’s site was still potentially tracked, but the data transmitted was likely less specific. However, if you fall into Subclass 2 and believe your exposure was more significant — say, you browsed condition-specific pages repeatedly but never actually logged into the portal — the settlement does not provide an avenue for increased compensation based on individual circumstances. The subclass you belong to is determined by the nature of your interaction, not by what data was actually transmitted in your specific case. One important limitation: the eligibility window for Subclass 1 ends on December 31, 2023, while Subclass 2 extends to July 25, 2024. If you only became a Northwell patient in 2024 and never used the portal during the earlier window, you would fall into Subclass 2 at best. And if your interactions with Northwell’s digital properties all occurred after July 25, 2024, you are not covered by this settlement at all.
What Information Was Actually Exposed Through the Tracking Pixels?
To understand why this settlement exists, it helps to know what Meta Pixel and Google Analytics actually do on a webpage. Meta Pixel is a snippet of JavaScript code that, when installed on a website, sends data back to Facebook about user activity — page views, button clicks, form submissions, and more. Google Analytics operates similarly, collecting browsing behavior data for site owners to analyze traffic patterns. On a retail or news website, this is standard practice. On a healthcare website, the same technology can inadvertently transmit information that qualifies as protected health information under HIPAA. In Northwell’s case, the allegation is that these tracking tools captured data including the type and date of medical appointments, information about patients’ health conditions, and identifying details tied to Facebook IDs and IP addresses.
Consider a practical example: if you logged into FollowMyHealth to schedule a cardiology appointment, the Meta Pixel may have transmitted that you visited a cardiology-related page, along with your Facebook ID if you were logged into Facebook in the same browser. Facebook could then theoretically connect that health-related browsing behavior to your personal profile. The same applies to Google Analytics transmitting browsing data paired with your IP address. This is not a case where Northwell deliberately sold patient data. The more likely scenario — and the one that has played out across dozens of similar lawsuits against other health systems — is that marketing or IT teams installed standard analytics tools without fully considering how they would interact with pages containing sensitive health information. That context does not excuse the privacy violation, but it does explain why the per-person payout is modest: the harm, while real, is systemic and diffuse rather than targeted.
How to File Your Claim Before the April 20, 2026 Deadline
Filing a claim is straightforward if you received an email notice with your Notice ID and PIN. Visit nwpixelsettlement.com/form/claim and enter those credentials to access the online claim form. The online submission must be completed by 11:59 p.m. ET on April 20, 2026. If you prefer to file by mail, send a completed paper claim form to: Northwell Health Pixel Settlement, c/o Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 25232, Santa Ana, CA 92799.
Mailed claims must be postmarked by April 20, 2026. The tradeoff between online and mail filing is mostly about speed and confirmation. Filing online gives you an immediate submission confirmation and eliminates the risk of postal delays, while mailing a paper form means you will not have real-time confirmation that your claim was received. Given that the deadline falls on a Monday, anyone mailing a claim should plan to have it in the mail no later than the preceding Thursday or Friday to ensure a timely postmark. If you did not receive a Notice ID or PIN but believe you are a class member, contact the settlement administrator directly by calling (833) 360-6887 or emailing info@NWPixelSettlement.com. This is particularly relevant for patients who may have changed email addresses since their interactions with Northwell, or whose email notices may have been caught by spam filters. Do not assume that the absence of a notice means you are ineligible — it may simply mean the administrator does not have your current contact information.
Opt-Out and Objection Rights — What You Give Up by Filing a Claim
Before submitting a claim, understand what you are agreeing to. By participating in the settlement, you release Northwell Health from future legal claims related to the pixel tracking conduct described in the lawsuit. This means you cannot later file an individual lawsuit against Northwell over the same alleged privacy violations, even if you later discover that your data was misused in ways not yet known. The opt-out deadline is March 23, 2026 — nearly a month before the claim deadline — so you need to make this decision relatively quickly. If you believe your individual damages significantly exceed $15.00 and privacy monitoring — for instance, if you can demonstrate that data transmitted through the pixels led to concrete harm like targeted advertising that revealed a medical condition to family members or employers — opting out to preserve your right to sue individually could make sense.
However, individual pixel tracking lawsuits are expensive to litigate and difficult to win, because proving specific, quantifiable harm from a data disclosure is a high bar. For the vast majority of class members, filing a claim within the settlement is the more practical path to any compensation at all. If you want to remain in the settlement class but disagree with the terms — perhaps you believe the $15.00 payout is too low or that Subclass 2 should also receive cash — you can file an objection by March 23, 2026. Objections will be considered at the Final Fairness Hearing on April 21, 2026 at 9:30 a.m. ET at 360 Adams Street in Brooklyn, New York. You do not need to attend the hearing to have your objection considered, but you may appear in person or through an attorney if you choose.
The Privacy Monitoring Benefit and What It Actually Covers
Both subclasses receive a 12-month subscription to privacy monitoring, which is the sole benefit for Subclass 2 members. Privacy monitoring services typically scan the web, data broker databases, and dark web marketplaces for your personal information and alert you if your data appears in unexpected places. For context, comparable services like Experian’s IdentityWorks or Norton LifeLock retail for roughly $10 to $25 per month, so a 12-month subscription has a retail value somewhere in the range of $120 to $300 depending on the specific provider and tier.
Whether this benefit has practical value to you depends on your existing coverage. If you already subscribe to an identity monitoring service — perhaps through a previous data breach settlement, a credit card benefit, or a personal subscription — the Northwell settlement’s monitoring may be redundant. Still, filing a claim costs nothing and takes only a few minutes, so there is little downside to securing the benefit even if you are uncertain about its value.
What This Settlement Signals for Healthcare Privacy Going Forward
The Northwell settlement is part of a broader reckoning in the healthcare industry over the use of third-party tracking technologies on patient-facing websites. Since the initial wave of scrutiny began, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued guidance clarifying that tracking technologies on healthcare websites can violate HIPAA when they transmit protected health information to third parties. Many health systems have since removed or reconfigured their use of Meta Pixel and Google Analytics, but lawsuits covering conduct from 2020 through 2024 continue to work their way through courts.
For patients, the practical takeaway is twofold. First, if you interacted with any hospital or health system website during this period, check whether settlements exist for those entities — Northwell is far from the only one. Second, going forward, consider using browser privacy tools or logging out of social media accounts before accessing healthcare portals. The legal landscape is shifting to hold health systems accountable, but individual precautions remain the fastest line of defense.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much money will I receive from the Northwell Health Pixel Tracking Settlement?
If you are in Subclass 1 (used the FollowMyHealth portal or booked an appointment on the website between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2023), you will receive $15.00 plus a 12-month privacy monitoring subscription. Subclass 2 members receive only the privacy monitoring, with no cash payment.
How do I know which subclass I belong to?
Your subclass depends on how you interacted with Northwell’s digital platforms. If you logged into the FollowMyHealth patient portal or booked an appointment online between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2023, you are in Subclass 1. All other Northwell patients between January 1, 2020 and July 25, 2024 fall into Subclass 2.
What if I never received an email notice about the settlement?
Not receiving a notice does not necessarily mean you are ineligible. Contact the settlement administrator at (833) 360-6887 or info@NWPixelSettlement.com to inquire about your eligibility and request a Notice ID and PIN.
What is the deadline to file a claim?
Claims must be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. ET on April 20, 2026, or mailed and postmarked by that same date to P.O. Box 25232, Santa Ana, CA 92799.
Can I opt out and sue Northwell individually instead?
Yes, but you must submit your opt-out request by March 23, 2026. Be aware that individual privacy lawsuits are expensive and difficult to win, so this path only makes sense if you have evidence of specific, significant harm beyond what the settlement covers.
What happens at the Final Fairness Hearing?
The hearing is scheduled for April 21, 2026 at 9:30 a.m. ET at 360 Adams Street in Brooklyn, New York. The judge will review the settlement terms, consider any objections, and decide whether to grant final approval. You do not need to attend unless you filed an objection and want to present it in person.