Like any other industry; the healthcare industry relies on marketing to promote its services and engage patients.
Restrictions around patient data usage complicate finding the right balance between data protection and effective healthcare marketing.
HIPAA-compliant marketing is the departure from traditional marketing; to maintain a balance between fulfilling legal obligations and healthcare marketing.
Read along to find out about HIPAA-compliant marketing and its implementation.
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HIPAA requires that patient data collection, storage, transfer, and maintenance are carried out while ensuring the privacy and security of protected health information.
It has a privacy rule to cover the patient data and a security rule to ensure the electronic patient data when healthcare companies collect patient data for data processing and patient journey mapping.
The omnibus rule extends the data privacy and security obligations to organizations working for the covered entities and dealing with PHI.
The breach rule sets out terms for notifying individuals if impermissible disclosure of their protected information occurs.
These are organizations that directly collect, create and transmit PHI for the sake of patient care provision.
It also includes individuals or organizations that furnish, pay, or are paid for health services.
Such institutes include community health management information systems, billing services, value-added networks, or repricing companies.
Remember Most of the time clearing houses act as the business associates of health plans and care providers. Therefore a different set of regulations would apply to them. |
An individual or organization that performs certain services for a covered entity involving directly receiving and dealing with patient PHI
The Privacy Rule defines the protected health information and entities on which HIPAA applies and makes provisions for the permissible use and disclosure of the PHI to ensure patients’ data privacy.
It includes information such as name, demography, medical diagnosis, treatment, and payment for such services that can allow the identification of an individual patient.
HIPAA has designated 18 identifiers that count as PHI. It enlists information like geographic location and IP addresses as well.
Collection, handling, and transmission of these are subject to the HIPAA regulations.
Besides enforcing protection against patient data disclosure to people not involved in health care provision, HIPAA also has rules for sharing the data.
The permissible use and disclosure of patient PHI include
It is an informal permission assumed for creating and storing patient PHI in the medical facility or notifying the individual’s family or people identified by themselves.
It is subject to the opportunity for the patient to object.
For purposes other than care provision or their associated activities, the use and disclosure of a patient’s PHI requires explicit authorization in writing from the patient.
HIPAA defines healthcare-related marketing as
All of the activities listed as HIPAA-defined marketing activities require authorization from a patient.
That also means that a covered entity needs explicit permission (authorization) to market a product or services of an associated facility.
Learn about creating a lead-generating digital marketing plan in this blog.
However, not all communication about facilities other than the ones already in use is considered marketing.
A covered entity may
The Security Rule focuses on a subset of protected health information, the electronic PHI.
It binds CEs and BAs to;
For the security component, entities need to conduct a detailed risk analysis, identifying the risks and vulnerabilities of electronic PHI.
Once identified as part of the management, they need to establish appropriate protective measures, document them, and ensure maintenance.
As the title suggests, these are safeguards designed for and implemented at the administrative level of the entities; to secure the environment of the e-PHI.
These safeguards protect the physical infrastructure and assets where e-PHI is stored or processed.
These involve implementing technological measures to control access, ensure data integrity, and respond to security incidents.
HIPAA-compliant marketing bypasses traditional analytical tools to ensure the privacy and security of patients’ protected information in line with HIPAA requirements which is why to remain HIPAA Compliant, Google Analytics must not be used for tracking either.
It is achieved through different approaches involving patients’ control over their data usage, secure data collection, processing, and transmission.
Let us discuss the marketing strategies that enable patient engagement and services marketing without compromising patient data.
Learn about HIPAA-compliant tracking and analysis in this blog.
De-identification refers to removing identifiers from the patient data and assigning it an encrypted identifier for healthcare provision purposes.
Anonymization on the other hand involves modifying the patient data so that it is difficult to connect the data with the individual.
De-identification and anonymization ensure;
The data left behind is broader with limited demographic information.
Marketers can still use this data by incorporating it with patient behavior and still manage to run campaigns that offer a solid return on investment.
HIPAA mandates that you seek unofficial consent from the patient for data storage and use for care provision.
While not necessary, it is a best practice to get signed consent forms and maintain them.
It is necessary, however, that you get authorization signed before sending marketing emails to the patients.
So, for HIPAA-compliant marketing;
Do note that sharing information about your services does not constitute marketing and does not require authorization.
Sending such communications via email has implications for the safe transfer of e-PHIs, which we will address in the next section.
As the covered entities’ reliance on technology increases, so do the risks to electronic protected health information.
In 2023 alone, a massive 41 million individuals’ sensitive health data was breached due to ransomware.
Ensuring secure data storage and transmission is crucial to HIPAA at all stages of data handling, including marketing.
Choosing relevant security measures for data storage is integral to PHI security.
Data encryption is a widely adapted safeguard that could leave patient information unusable and unreadable to an unauthorized person.
Entities can choose to have PHI encryption to ensure the safety of the data onsite and in transit to their business associates or even patients.
For HIPAA-compliant data storage
Maintaining an off-site backup for the encrypted patient information is another protective measure to ensure you have something in case of a system breakdown or other emergency.
Cloud storage is a popular choice to minimize storage costs and ease of access.
However, traditional cloud storage services can pose a risk to PHI security.
A cloud storage suitable for health care should have the following
Given all these requirements are being met, HIPAA-compliant cloud storage can be used for e-PHI storage and hosting apps for data collection and processing.
Like the data collection and storage stage, data transmission also needs encryption to ensure security.
Activities like ending emails, or messages are subject to these requirements because sensitive information like email ID or contact number or the contents of the email can be snooped on by unauthorized people on the internet.
To avoid this, rely on secure data transfer technologies like transport layer security (TLS) to ensure the safety of internal and external communications.
It ensures that the emails and messages sent out are encrypted and that only the sender and receiver know the contents.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems help organize, analyze, and manage customer interactions and data.
Having evolved from a mere sales tool into user (patient) management and marketing, CRMs are at the center of modern marketing.
Like other tools and systems, a HIPAA-compliant CRM has to meet the patient's e-PHI privacy and security standards.
It means the data storage and transfer need to be protected through encryption, access controls, data backups, and audit trails need to be maintained.
A HIPAA-compliant CRM allows you to
Access control is a technical safeguard where only authorized workers can access the e-PHI.
It is implemented through authentication, whereby a person needs to enter their credentials and verify their identity.
This way, only a limited number of individuals can access e-PHI on a role-based access control basis to perform their duties.
Adding multi-factor authentication for access can provide an additional layer of security.
HIPAA-compliant marketing involves engaging individuals without compromising the privacy and security of their protected health information.
The privacy rule stipulates that covered entities need patient consent before using and storing their PHI for on-site storage and notification.
Any communication involving their PHI such as email or messages, prerequisites patients’ written authorization. The same goes for patients receiving marketing communications.
The security rule mandates risk analysis of the ePHI security and its management. It requires administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for ePHI security.
To implement HIPAA-compliant marketing covered entities must ensure secure storage, transfer, and use of PHI and ePHI.
They must extend these protections to the data used and disclose to their business associates with a business associate agreement.
Some ways to achieve data protection include encrypted e-PHI storage on-site and maintaining an offsite backup.
Use secure HIPAA-compliant Cloud Storage, encrypted data transmission including emails and messages, employ HIPAA-compliant CRM for robust patient management and marketing campaigns, and access control and authentication.
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