Effective marketing channels for reaching and engaging people requires more than great content alone. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations require healthcare providers to comply with certain security measures to protect patient data.
Wondering what that means for healthcare marketers? Here’s what you need to know about HIPAA-compliant marketing.
HIPAA Compliance: What It Is and Why It Matters
HIPAA regulations are designed to safeguard each individual’s protected health information (PHI) from being shared without their knowledge or consent. These standards are federally regulated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Healthcare marketers need to understand HIPAA regulations and follow them in their marketing campaigns. That means achieving healthcare marketing privacy to protect PHI, such as a patient’s name, address, social security number, important dates, serial numbers, account numbers, IP addresses, photos, biometric identifiers, and diagnosis and treatment notes, as well as any other individually identifiable health information.
Ensuring your marketing is HIPAA-compliant is essential for:
- Protecting individual privacy: Safeguarding each individual’s PHI requires organizations to follow specific guidelines when marketing on digital channels.
- Maintaining patients’ trust: Patients need to know that they can trust you to protect their private information, even when using PHI to personalize messaging.
- Minimizing security risks: HIPAA regulations help minimize broader cybersecurity risks that impact the entire organization, such as email hacks and data breaches.
- Avoiding fines and litigation: HIPAA compliance mitigates the potential for significant fines and even criminal penalties like prison time.
4 Steps to Ensure HIPAA-Compliant Marketing
1. Know and Keep Up with Evolving Regulations
The healthcare industry is ever-evolving, and so are the laws that regulate it. Knowing, understanding, and keeping up with evolving HIPAA regulations is the first step to achieving healthcare marketing privacy and ensuring compliance.
Not sure where to start or how to make sense of evolving regulations? You can use reputable sources like the HHS website and HIPAA Journal to learn about HIPAA requirements and stay up to date as they evolve.
2. Understand and Address Technical Challenges
Even with the best of intentions, technology still presents specific challenges when it comes to protecting private data—particularly around data storage. That’s why you need to have end-to-end encryption in place to protect stored data, as well as strong password and firewall protection to avoid possible security threats.
Taking time to understand and address any technical challenges is a must, but it does require a certain level of expertise to keep patients’ data safe. Consulting with a professional is the best way to ensure you’re meeting all HIPAA requirements.
3. Get Patient Authorization Before Using Any PHI
It may be tempting to avoid using PHI altogether, but there’s a better answer: patient authorization. PHI is a great resource for tailoring marketing messages to each patient and healthcare plan member—you just need to always get permission via opt-in forms.
To cover all your bases, make sure to specify the marketing channels where you’ll be using PHI. Patients may be more comfortable with you sharing their PHI in some channels than others, so it’s important to make this very clear when you ask patients to opt in. (That way, they know exactly what they’re signing up for!)
4. Choose a HIPAA-Compliant Marketing Partner
Even with a well-crafted HIPAA strategy in place, you may still need support to ensure compliance. Work with a marketing partner like Baesman who understands the healthcare industry and is knowledgeable about evolving HIPAA regulations.
A marketing partner without industry knowledge may unintentionally cause you to violate HIPAA regulations. In contrast, a healthcare marketing partner that understands HIPAA compliance can help you follow federal regulations and take advantage of PHI without making potentially costly or risky mistakes.
Partner with Baesman for HIPAA-Compliant Marketing
Some of the world’s leading healthcare organizations trust Baesman to deliver personalized, HIPAA-compliant marketing. Industry knowledge coupled with security measures such as data encryption and network layering give healthcare providers peace of mind that marketing campaigns are always in compliance with HIPAA standards—and personalized to each individual in the process.
Does your healthcare organization need to revamp its marketing strategy? Learn how you can make your messages matter when you partner with Baesman.