Effective HIPAA Compliant Email Campaigns: A Step-By-Step Guide

Healthcare Marketing, HIPAA Compliant Email, HIPAA Email Marketing
Pete Wermter
October 28, 2024

In the healthcare industry, ensuring HIPAA compliance is essential when carrying out email campaigns that contain protected health information (PHI), including for both transactional and marketing emails.

Whether sending appointment reminders, treatment plans, payment information, or marketing campaigns, HIPAA compliant email services are essential for securely engaging with patients and effectively leveraging PHI in your messages. For this you will need HIPAA compliant marketing solutions.

However, a constant challenge faced by healthcare companies is carrying out email campaigns that are both effective and HIPAA compliant. On one hand, some organizations fail to recognize when they’re including PHI in their messaging and fall out of compliance. On the other hand, while companies are compliant in their handling of PHI, their email campaigns fail to use this information to personalize communications and deliver better outcomes as a result.

With all this in mind, this step-by-step guide will walk you through how to run effective HIPAA-compliant email campaigns that combine security and personalization for enhanced patient engagement.

Step 1: Choose a HIPAA Compliant Email Service Provider

The first, and undoubtedly, most important step to running successful HIPAA compliant email campaigns is using a secure and reliable delivery service. To ensure compliance with HIPAA’s privacy and security rules, your chosen platform must offer end-to-end encryption, secure data storage, and other key cybersecurity measures. Additionally, a comprehensive email delivery service will provide the tools and features you need, such as design and segmentation functionality, to optimize the effectiveness of your healthcare engagement campaigns.

Perhaps the most significant benefit of running campaigns through a HIPAA compliant email provider is that it removes all the guesswork from what counts as PHI in the first place; you can feel fully assured that all your emails are both secure and in line with HIPAA regulations.

Step 2: Ensure You Have a Business Associate Agreement (BAA)

A key determiner of a truly HIPAA compliant email platform, like LuxSci, is being willing to provide you with a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). A BAA is a crucial aspect of HIPAA compliance, as it lays out, in writing, that each party acknowledges their responsibility to protect PHI and, subsequently, their respective liability in the event of a data breach.

With this in mind, a key part of your due diligence when choosing an email delivery platform is ensuring it is willing to supply you with a BAA. Many organizations are surprised to find that many popular delivery solutions, such as Mailchimp and SendGrid do not sign BAAs and, as a result, aren’t HIPAA-compliant email services.

Step 3: Secure Patient Consent & Opt-In Best Practices

Before sending emails that potentially contain PHI, it’s essential to secure patient consent: they must explicitly agree to receive information via email. Obtaining patient consent shows that your organization respects the patient’s right to privacy and grants them greater control over how their data is used – something that people are growing increasingly conscious of. This is particularly important for marketing campaigns, benefits communications, and proactive notifications like medical equipment upgrades or prescription verifications.

By following opt-in best practices, you’ll not only ensure HIPAA- compliance but also build trust with your patients, making them more receptive to your healthcare engagement efforts.

Step 4: Segment Your Campaigns for Better Engagement

Now you’ve signed up for a HIPAA-compliant email services provider and have secured patient consent, it’s time to segment your audience. Segmentation and personalization ensure that patients only receive the communications most relevant to them, improving the effectiveness of your campaigns.

For instance, you could create email campaigns for:

Appointment reminders: for upcoming check-ups or follow-ups.
Billing and payment: notifications that include secure links for payment.
Proactive notifications: about prescription renewals or in-home care.
Marketing: proactive offers, equipment upgrades, new services and more.

In pursuit of this, LuxSci Secure Marketing enables you to safely create and manage different patient segments, ensuring that emails containing PHI reach the appropriate audience, in addition to being sent securely.

Step 5: Automate for Efficiency and Accuracy

Automation is a vital tool for scaling your HIPAA-compliant email campaigns. As the number of messages you send out starts to grow, automating as much of the process as possible will save you considerable time and effort.

Whether you’re sending appointment reminders, treatment plan updates, or marketing emails, automation reduces human error and ensures timely delivery. This not only saves time but ensures consistent, efficient communication with your patients.

Step 6: Use Advanced Encryption for PHI

With PHI being a core component of many healthcare communications, you must ensure that every email you deliver is encrypted. HIPAA regulations require emails to be encrypted at rest, including when stored, and in transit, and when being sent to patients, so the sensitive data isn’t readable by a hacker if it is stolen.

While not a standard feature in all email delivery services, LuxSci’s SecureLine technology provides flexible encryption options such as TLS and Escrow, applying the right level of encryption based on the email’s content and the recipient’s security posture.

Step 7: Monitor and Report for Continuous Improvement

Lastly, it’s important to note that maintaining HIPAA compliance isn’t a one-time obligation. Continuous monitoring and reporting are crucial for identifying potential security flaws, compliance issues, and improving the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

This is particularly important for large-scale campaigns, such as lead generation for retail healthcare products or services, and order confirmations. Comprehensive reporting tools allow you to track email deliverability, open rates and response rates, recipient domain performance, and other key performance metrics, all while ensuring that your PHI is handled compliantly.

HIPAA Compliant Email is Critical for Healthcare Marketing Campaigns

Running a successful HIPAA compliant email marketing campaign is all about balancing security with data-driven marketing strategies. By following the steps detailed in this article, you’ll get increasingly more from your healthcare engagement efforts: building stronger connections with patients and, ultimately, maximizing the ROI of your marketing spend.

As the most experienced HIPAA-compliant email provider, LuxSci specializes in providing high performance, secure solutions that ensure your messages comply with all HIPAA regulations – no matter the scale of your campaign, or the use case.

If you’d like to learn more about how LuxSci can help your organization achieve its healthcare marketing goals, contact us today!

Pete Wermter

As a marketing leader with more than 20 years of experience in enterprise software marketing, Pete's career includes a mix of corporate and field marketing roles, stretching from Silicon Valley to the EMEA and APAC regions, with a focus on data protection and optimizing engagement for regulated industries, such as healthcare and financial services. Pete Wermter — LinkedIn

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LuxSci and Oiva Health Combine to Form Transatlantic Healthcare Communications Group

February 12, 2026
Pete Wermter

Boston & Helsinki, February 12, 2026 – LuxSci, a provider of secure healthcare communications solutions in the United States, and Oiva Health, a Nordic provider of Digital Care solutions in social and healthcare services, today announced that the companies are joining forces. Backed by Main Capital Partners (“Main”), the combination brings together two complementary platforms and teams, forming a strong transatlantic software group focused on secure healthcare communications.

Founded in 1999, LuxSci is a U.S. provider of HIPAA‑compliant, secure email, marketing, and forms solutions. Its application and infrastructure software enable organizations to securely deliver personalized, sensitive data at scale to support a broad range of healthcare communications and workflows including care coordination, benefits and payments, marketing, wellness communications, after care and ongoing care. Certified by HITRUST for the highest levels of data security, LuxSci serves dozens of healthcare enterprises and hundreds of mid‑market organizations.

Founded in 2010, Oiva Health is a provider of digital care and communications solutions in the Nordics. Headquartered in Finland, with additional offices in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Oiva Health offers digital care and digital clinic solutions – including digital visits, secure messaging, online scheduling and appointments, and caregiver communications – serving the long-term care, especially elderly care, and occupational healthcare verticals. The company employs approximately 60 people and has recently expanded across the Nordic region, with a growing presence in Norway and Sweden.

The combination of LuxSci and Oiva Health creates a larger, cross Atlantic group with complementary solutions, serving the U.S. and European markets. Together, the companies offer healthcare providers, payers, and suppliers a comprehensive suite of tools to communicate securely and compliantly, spanning communications, workflows, and virtual care delivery.

Daan Visscher, Partner and Co-Head North America at Main, commented: “We are pleased to announce this cross Atlantic transaction, creating an internationally active secure communications player within the healthcare and home care space. The combined product suite enables healthcare organizations to drive much needed efficiency gains in healthcare provision addressing a global trend of rising costs, aging population, and increasing pressure on resources needed to provide high-quality care.”

Mark Leonard, CEO of LuxSci, said, “We are thrilled to join forces with Oiva Health and believe that together we can truly make a difference in healthcare coordination, access, and delivery. We see an exciting path forward with our customers benefiting from an end-to-end, secure and compliant approach to optimizing both healthcare communications and today’s frontline workers, which we need now more than ever.”

Juhana Ojala, CEO at Oiva Health, concluded, “We look forward to this new chapter together with LuxSci. We are very excited about the strong alignment between our solutions, which especially strongly positions us to expand our flagship Digital Care offering to the high-potential U.S. care market – from care coordination to care delivery to in-home and institutional care.”

Nothing contained in this Press Release is intended to project, predict, guarantee, or forecast the future performance of any investment. This Press Release is for information purposes only and is not investment advice or an offer to buy or sell any securities or to invest in any funds or other investment vehicles managed by Main Capital Partners or any other person.

[END OF MESSAGE]

About LuxSci

LuxSci is a U.S.-based provider of secure healthcare communications solutions for the healthcare industry. The company offers secure email, marketing, forms and hosting, delivering HIPAA‑compliant communication solutions that enable organizations to safely manage and transmit sensitive data. Founded in 1999, LuxSci serves more than 1,900 customers across healthcare verticals, including providers, payers, suppliers, and healthcare retail, home care providers, and healthcare systems, as well as organizations operating in other highly regulated industries. LuxSci is HITRUST‑certified with example clients being Athenahealth, 1800 Contacts, Lucerna Health, Eurofins, and Rotech Healthcare, among others.

About Oiva Health

Oiva Health is a Digital Care provider in the Nordics, offering a comprehensive Digital Platform for integrated health and care services to digitalize primary healthcare, social care, hospital healthcare and long-term care services. The company was founded in 2010 and currently employs approximately 60 people in Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden serving domestic municipalities, customers and partners, such as City of Helsinki, Keski-Suomi Welfare Region, Länsi-Uusimaa Welfare Region in Finland, and Viborg municipality in Denmark with its Digital Care platform. Annually over 5 million customer contacts are handled digitally through Oiva Health’s Digital Care and Digital Clinic platforms.

About Main Capital Partners

Main Capital Partners is a software investor managing private equity funds active in the Benelux, DACH, the Nordics, France, and the United States with approximately EUR 7 billion in assets under management. Main has over 20 years of experience in strengthening software companies and works closely with the management teams across its portfolio as a strategic partner to achieve profitable growth and create larger outstanding software groups. Main has approximately 95 employees operating out of its offices in The Hague, Düsseldorf, Stockholm, Antwerp, Paris, and an affiliate office in Boston. Main maintains an active portfolio of over 50 software companies. The underlying portfolio employs approximately 15,000 employees. Through its Main Social Institute, Main supports students with grants and scholarships to study IT and Computer Science at Technical Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences.

The sender of this press release is Main Capital Partners.

For more information, please contact:

Main Capital Partners
Sophia Hengelbrok (PR & Communications Specialist)

sophia.hengelbrok@main.nl

+ 31 6 53 70 76 86

Rethinking HIPAA Compliant Email – Not Just a Checkbox

January 20, 2026
Pete Wermter

The compliance-only mentality is outdated.

Let’s be honest—when most healthcare organizations think about HIPAA compliant email, it’s usually in the context of avoiding fines or satisfying checklists. And while yes, compliance is critical, viewing it only through the lens of risk management is a missed opportunity.

In reality, HIPAA compliant email, when implemented properly, is one of the most powerful tools for patient and customer engagement. Why? Because it unlocks the ability to leverage protected health information (PHI) safely, enabling personalized, timely, and high-impact email communication that drives better engagement, satisfaction, and outcomes.

What Makes Email Truly HIPAA Compliant?

As a reminder, HIPAA compliant email requires that protected health information (PHI) is safeguarded both in transit and at rest. That means your email provider must:

Use encryption at all times

Be access-controlled

Include audit logs

Be stored and transmitted in a secure manner

Provide a Business Associate Agreement

Regular email services just don’t cut it. In fact, most consumer or marketing email platforms like Sendgrid or Constant Contact, while great at sending email, are not HIPAA compliant or have limitations when it comes to using PHI in your messages. Even when bolted-on encryption solutions are used, they often lack the flexibility, scalability, and automation needed for safe and effective healthcare email engagement.

LuxSci goes beyond the basics with policy-based encryption, secure TLS, PKI encryption and escrow/secure portal options. LuxSci’s SecureLine™ encryption technology dynamically selects the appropriate encryption method based on recipient capabilities and messaging context and can be configured to enforce secure delivery automatically according to organizational policies. LuxSci also provides the ability to enforce advanced multi-factor authentication. Every message is tracked with full audit trails—no guesswork, no loose ends.

The Real Opportunity – Secure, Personalized Email with PHI

Using PHI to Drive Personalized Messaging
Imagine sending a personalized reminder to a diabetic patient about an upcoming check-up. Or reaching out to new mothers with postnatal care resources tailored to their needs. Or sending automated email workflows to all your members to accelerate and increase new plan enrollments. Or email customer and prospects about a new product upgrade or new service offering. The list goes on. That’s the power of PHI-personalized email—when done securely.

Targeted Segmentation with Sensitive Data
With HIPAA compliant email solutions like LuxSci, you can segment your audience based on real health data with high levels of precision, such as chronic conditions, appointment history, insurance status, health risks, and more, without compromising patient trust or security.

Breaking the One-Size-Fits-All Approach in Healthcare Email
Generic email blasts are over. Modern patients expect personalization. With LuxSci, you can deliver highly targeted, highly secure emails with encrypted content, while staying HIPAA compliant.

Real Business Results from Secure Email

Here’s how secure, personalized email can drive improved results across a range of healthcare communications, including:

Increased Patient Appointments and Follow-ups – Sending encrypted, personalized appointment reminders and follow-up notices can reduce no-shows and boost overall appointment volume.
Boosting Preventative Care with Outreach Campaigns – Preventative campaigns (think flu shots or cancer screenings) sent securely to the right segments can lead to higher response rates, better health outcomes, and a lower cost of care.
Improving Health Plan Enrollments – Targeted email outreach during open enrollment, tailored by eligibility or plan type, and powered by automated workflows leads to higher enrollments and lower call center costs.
Driving Awareness and Sales of New Services or Products – Have a product upgrade offer, new wellness program or telehealth service? Send secure, PHI-informed HIPAA compliant email to the right audience for increased sales and faster adoption.
Optimize Explanation of Benefits Notices – Replace snail mail with email that’s fast, reliable and trackable, ensuring customers are informed and compliance is met.

The Healthcare Marketer’s Secret Weapon: Using PHI Responsibly

In a world moving away from third-party cookies, first-party data is more valuable than ever, and PHI is the most powerful form of it in healthcare. With secure HIPAA compliant email, PHI doesn’t have to be locked away. Marketers can safely use it to understand patient needs and send relevant, timely messages. PHI-driven segmentation lets you build hyper-targeted campaigns that speak to relevant conditions, unique needs and timely topics, increasing open rates, clicks throughs, and campaign conversions.

Meeting the Personalization Demands of Today’s Patients and Customers

HIPAA-compliant email is no longer just about checking a box. It’s about unlocking the full potential of your patient and customer data to drive better engagement, healthier outcomes, and measurable business results.

In closing, below are some final thoughts on how secure, HIPAA compliant email delivers long-term value for your organization and better connections with your patients and customers, including:

- Future-Proofing Healthcare Engagement – Patients expect Amazon-level personalization. HIPAA-compliant tools let you meet those expectations securely.

- Adapting to Data Privacy Regulations Beyond HIPAA – From GDPR to state-level privacy laws, secure communication is no longer optional, it’s foundational.

- Building Trust Through Secure Communication – Each secure, personalized message sent is a trust-building moment with your patients and customers.

Why LuxSci? The Infrastructure Behind the Performance

With LuxSci’s secure email infrastructure and email marketing solutions, healthcare organizations can confidently personalize communication, reach patients more effectively, and fuel growth with PHI-safe segmentation, messaging, and email automation.

LuxSci takes data security and email performance to the next level by offering dedicated cloud infrastructure for each customer, which means your email campaigns aren’t slowed down by other vendors on shared cloud services and your attack footprint is much smaller. In short, you get higher delivery rates and throughput with proven HIPAA compliance and data security.

The future of healthcare engagement is personal, secure, and performance-driven—and it starts with HIPAA compliant email done right.

Reach out today with any questions or to learn more about LuxSci.

FAQs

1. Is HIPAA-compliant email necessary for marketing communications?
Yes—if your emails include or are based on PHI (like appointment reminders, condition-based messaging, or insurance info), you need HIPAA-compliant email and recipient consent to avoid legal risk and preserve patient trust.

2. Can PHI be used in marketing emails under HIPAA?
Yes, with proper consent and secure, HIPAA compliant infrastructure like LuxSci’s, PHI can be safely used in emails for personalized, segmented campaigns.

3. How does LuxSci ensure high email deliverability for healthcare messages?
LuxSci uses dedicated cloud servers for each customer, active email reputation monitoring, and best-practice configurations to ensure high deliverability rates for sensitive emails.

4. Is LuxSci only for marketing teams?
No—LuxSci supports marketing, clinical, operations, and IT teams by enabling secure, compliant email communication across the entire organization.

5. What types of PHI can I use to segment campaigns using LuxSci?
You can segment based on chronic conditions, visit history, insurance status, provider details, age, gender, location, and more—all while staying fully compliant.

Most Popular LuxSci Blog Posts of 2025

December 30, 2025
Pete Wermter

As we close out 2025, healthcare communicators, IT and compliance leaders, and digital marketers face an ever-changing landscape of security threats, regulatory updates, and technology innovations. At LuxSci, we’re committed to helping you with continuous updates and guidance on the future of secure healthcare communications.

In case you missed it, or need a refresh, below are some of our most popular blog posts from 2025. Enjoy!

1. Improve Email Engagement and Marketing Results with Automated Workflows

Automated workflows are transforming how healthcare organizations engage patients and customers — enabling dynamic, event-driven campaigns that easily scale your outreach and keep you HIPAA compliant. In this post, we introduce LuxSci’s Automated Workflows capability for our Secure Marketing healthcare solution. Learn how sequence-based journeys can personalize outreach and optimize engagement with behavior-based triggers that improve campaign performance — without sacrificing data security.

Read the full post: LuxSci Enhances Secure Marketing with Automated Workflows

2. Healthcare Email Threat Readiness Strategies

Email remains a frontline channel for healthcare communications, and a prime target for cyber threats and criminals. This deep-dive into email threat readiness strategies covers essential practices like continuous monitoring, business continuity planning, and workforce training to mitigate email-borne security risks. Whether you’re responsible for clinical systems, marketing, or enterprise IT, this post provides a strategic playbook to strengthen your defenses, while maximizing your results.

Read the full post: Healthcare Email Threat Readiness Strategies

3. HIPAA Compliant Email — 20 Tips in 20 Minutes

For practical guidance you can apply right now, this on-demand webinar distills 20 key tips for HIPAA-compliant email across technical, legal, and operational domains. Whether you’re refining your infrastructure, improving deliverability, or modernizing your data security posture in 2026, this resource is a time-efficient way to elevate your compliance and security.

Read the post and watch the webinar on demand: HIPAA Compliant Email: 20 Tips in 20 Minutes

4. Is SendGrid HIPAA-Compliant? What You Should Know

Choosing the right email provider matters, especially when Protected Health Information (PHI) is at stake. In this post, we examine SendGrid’s capabilities in the context of HIPAA compliance, outline what it takes to send PHI securely, and offer guidance on evaluating third-party services for secure healthcare email and communication needs.

Read the full post: Is SendGrid HIPAA-Compliant?

5. LuxSci Shines in G2 Winter 2026 Reports

Customer feedback matters to LuxSci. In this post, we share the most recent news about LuxSci’s performance in the G2 Winter 2026 Reports, where we earned 20 badges across categories like Email Security, Encryption, Gateway, and HIPAA-Compliant Messaging. These reviews reflect not just product excellence, but trust from real users, which we work hard to build every day!

Read the full post: LuxSci Shines in G2 Winter 2026 Reports

Looking Ahead to 2026

We look forward to providing more information and insights on secure healthcare communications in the coming year, including the latest on HIPAA compliant email, PHI security, healthcare marketing, threat readiness, and personalized engagement. In the meantime, if you’re not already, follow us on LinkedIn below, and we’ll see you here in 2026!

Follow LuxSci on LinkedIn

LuxSci Welcomes Angel Mazariegos as Head of Finance

December 9, 2025
Pete Wermter

LuxSci, a leader in secure healthcare communications and HIPAA compliant email, is pleased to announce the appointment of Angel Marie Mazariegos as the company’s new Head of Finance. With over 25 years of experience in financial management, accounting, and human resources, Angel will play a central role in advancing LuxSci’s operational excellence and supporting the company’s rapid growth in 2026 and beyond.

Angel brings a wealth of expertise to LuxSci, having held senior leadership positions at organizations focused on financial services, language and access services for healthcare, and human resources. In these roles, Angel has led multi-department Finance and HR teams, spearheading critical initiatives, including ERP implementations, streamlined employee onboarding, and financial process optimization.

In her role at LuxSci, Angel will oversee all aspects of the company’s finance operations, including budgeting, forecasting and reporting. Additionally, Angel will manage the company’s HR function, ensuring that LuxSci continues to foster a strong, people-driven culture based on its Secure, Trust, Responsible and Smart company values.

“Angel’s blend of financial and HR leadership makes her an invaluable addition to the LuxSci executive team and a real asset for our people,” said Mark Leonard, CEO of LuxSci. “We look forward to working with Angel to build the high-performing teams that will be critical to our future growth and serving the evolving needs of our customers.”

Angel holds dual MBA degrees in Accounting and Human Resource Management from Cappella University, as well as dual BS degrees in Business Administration (Accounting and CIS Business Systems) from California State University, Los Angeles.

“I am honored to join the LuxSci team at such an exciting time for the company,” said Mazariegos. “I look forward to working with the team and helping build on LuxSci’s reputation for excellence and reliability in secure healthcare communications.”

LuxSci vs. Zix Webroot: Choosing the Right HIPAA Compliant Email Provider

March 6, 2025
Pete Wermter

There are many crucial factors to consider when developing and executing successful healthcare communication campaigns. First and foremost, you must ensure the protected health information (PHI) under your organization’s care is handled securely, as mandated by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations, which begins with selecting the right HIPAA compliant email provider for your company’s needs.

With the right email services provider (ESP) in place, healthcare providers, payers, and suppliers can confidently use PHI in their patient and customer engagement campaigns – safe in the knowledge they’re aligned with HIPAA’s tight regulatory guidelines.

To help you choose the best HIPAA compliant email provider for your healthcare organization’s email outreach objectives, this post compares two of the most well-known HIPAA compliant services on the market: LuxSci and Zix Webroot (from here, simply referred to as Zix).

Comparing each email provider’s performance on several criteria, we’ll help you decide which solution best fits the needs of your healthcare organization and will help you better engage with your patients and customers.

LuxSci vs. Zix: Evaluation Criteria

In our evaluation of LuxSci vs. Zix, we’ll be using the following criteria:

Data Security and Compliance: undoubtedly the most important factor when it comes to ensuring HIPAA-compliant email communication within healthcare organizations, this reflects the extent to which each platform secures sensitive patient data as per HIPAA’s regulations.
Performance and Scalability: the email platform’s ability to facilitate high-volume email communication campaigns, which also, subsequently, encompasses the platform’s throughput and how well they’re able to scale in line with an organization’s needs.
Infrastructure: if the email service provider has the necessary security infrastructure in place to both adequately safeguard PHI and support bulk email marketing campaigns.
Marketing Capabilities: if the platform provides features that allow you to personalize and refine your patient engagement strategies.
Ease of Use: how easy each email service is to use; a deceptively important factor in light of the urgent need for employee cyber threat awareness training.
Other HIPAA-Compliant Products: if the platform offers complementary features that aid healthcare organizations with their broader patient engagement, and growth, objectives.

Now that we’ve covered the criteria by which we’ll be assessing each email platform, let’s compare LuxSci vs Zix to determine which is the best fit for your company’s needs.

LuxSci vs. Zix: How Do They Compare?

Data Security and Compliance

LuxSci prides itself on being a fully HIPAA-compliant email service provider, offering end-to-end, flexible, and automated encryption, giving it an advantage in the protection of patient data in the event of its exfiltration by cyber criminals. Additionally, LuxSci is HITRUST-certified, illustrating its additional commitment to data privacy legislation and the securing of PHI.

Zix is also fully HIPAA-compliant and, consequently, enables the use of PHI to personalize your email communications. That said, Zix doesn’t offer as many encryption options as LuxSci. Most notably, Zix doesn’t enforce Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption or enable automated encryption. The absence of these features means that a healthcare organization’s security teams must perform more manual oversight when it comes to encryption of PHI, increasing the chance of human error.

Performance and Scalability

While Zix supports large email campaigns and provides detailed reporting functionality, LuxSci is the more prudent choice for high-volume email marketing campaigns.

LuxSci maintains the necessary infrastructure to ensure the reliable delivery of hundreds of thousands to millions of emails per month (i.e., throughput – 1000s of emails per hour), all while adhering to HIPAA’s strict guidelines on preserving patient privacy.

Infrastructure

In the same way that LuxSci have advantages over Zix on data security capabilities, it performs well in this category too, which makes sense, as the two factors are interwoven.

While offering a range of customary multi-tenancy infrastructure setups, Zix doesn’t accommodate dedicated, or single-tenancy, infrastructure options – for companies who can’t afford to depend on the security postures of the companies with whom they share servers. Zix, in line with its ability to facilitate large patient or customer engagement campaigns, provides enterprise-scale scalability.

Zix also provides high availability and robust disaster recovery capabilities, so healthcare organizations can retain their operational capabilities in the event of a cyber attack. Or, alternatively, an unforeseen physical disaster that compromises a company’s infrastructure (power outages, fires, storms, intentional damage, etc.).

That said, LuxSci possesses all these features in addition to more comprehensive single-tenancy options, scalability, and secure email hosting.

Marketing Capabilities

As with our comparisons of LuxSci against email platforms like Paubox and Virtru, it’s somewhat futile to compare each platform’s marketing capabilities – as neither LuxSci or Zix are marketing platforms, in the vein of Adobe Campaign or Oracle Eloqua, for example.

That said. LuxSci provides a HIPAA compliant marketing solution, offering automation, for streamlining email marketing campaigns, and, personalization options, for more engaging email communication campaigns.

Ease of Use

Both LuxSci and Zix perform admirably in this category, but the edge goes to Zix, as LuxSci implementations often involve the complexities that come with large-scale, high volume use cases.

LuxSci, however, is known for offering best-in-class customer support backed by HIPAA security experts, honed as a result of over 25 years of facilitating and supporting email communication strategies for healthcare organizations of all sizes.

Other HIPAA-compliant Products

With secure texting functionality, secure forms for HIPAA compliant data collection, and secure file sharing, LuxSci ranks well in this category. Zix, in contrast, provides only secure file sharing – though, because of Zix Webroot’s capabilities, offers superior secure file sharing to LuxSci.

Get Your Copy of LuxSci’s Vendor Comparison Guide

To discover how LuxSci and Zix stack up against the other leading email providers on the market when it comes to HIPAA compliance, take a look at our Vendor Comparison Guide. Evaluating 12 email delivery platforms, the guide offers comprehensive insights on what to consider when selecting a HIPAA compliant provider, and how to choose the best solution for you.

Healthcare Marketing Trends

May 28, 2025
Pete Wermter

Let’s take a look at key healthcare marketing trends to be aware of and how they can impact your results.

Email Deliverability

Thanks to Google and Yahoo, significant changes happened for email marketers in 2024. As we’ve previously written about, Google and Yahoo are implementing new requirements for bulk email senders that will involve a lot of coordination and effort for marketers. Beyond the initial implementation of technical requirements like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, marketers must pay close attention to their spam rates in the future. Keeping your spam reports below 0.3% will be essential to ensure that Google and Yahoo aren’t blacklisting your emails. Marketers must keep their email lists clean, craft relevant campaigns, and use technology to remove unengaged contacts promptly. Over two billion people use Google or Yahoo as their email provider, so adopting these standards is not optional.

Artificial Intelligence

Healthcare marketers are also looking at ways to use artificial intelligence to save time and automate processes with tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, and Midjourney. Now, marketers are seriously evaluating tools that can assist with business processes like copywriting, graphic design, data analysis, and other functions.

However, it’s essential to carefully vet any artificial intelligence tool if you plan to use it in your marketing efforts. What data sets is it trained on? Are they biased? Is the information accurate? Some tools introduce legal compliance risks, and it’s essential to understand the risks thoroughly.

Trust is essential in healthcare marketing, and relying too heavily on AI tools can create a negative patient experience. AI tools should not replace marketers. At best, these tools can help marketers complete their work. Guardrails are required when it comes to AI tools, and healthcare marketers should be cautious to ensure their brands are well-represented by the output of these tools.

Automation and APIs

Another way to save time and measure results is using APIs and automation. Many marketers are turning to automation tactics to streamline operations in the face of increasing budgetary pressure. Advanced email marketers can use email APIs to trigger email campaigns and automated workflows when specific criteria are met, including user engagement with emails, and use dynamic content to personalize the healthcare journey. These tactics make email marketing scalable and ensure your audience receives the proper communications at the right time.

APIs can also be used to organize the results of your marketing efforts. Email APIs can deliver data about your campaigns (delivery status, open and clicks, unsubscribes, number secured, etc.) back into your marketing dashboards and databases. This is a way to help you make informed decisions and improve your marketing results. Expect to see more marketers embrace automation alongside AI tools this year.

Personalization

Personalization continues to be extremely important to successful healthcare marketing efforts. This is a challenge for healthcare providers because they must comply with HIPAA regulations in their email communications. Luckily, with the right tools and patient permission, it’s possible to personalize emails to create relevant campaigns, including using PHI in emails and messaging. When healthcare marketers have access to zero-party patient data and the right tools to execute, they can go beyond practice newsletters to create email campaigns that deliver results.

Proving Impact and Delivering ROI

Healthcare providers continue to face a challenging economic situation and may be forced to cut marketing budgets. Although some advertising channels may be forced to take a hiatus, email marketing should not be one of them. Not only do patients want to receive marketing communications via email, but email marketing also delivers one of the best returns on investment compared to other channels.

However, the way we track and measure the impact of marketing campaigns must also change. In 2024, open rates started becoming less reliable indicators of marketing success. Apple Mail’s privacy features and the increasing prevalence of email filtering and spam tools mean that marketers will need to rely on different metrics to judge the success of their campaigns. Tracking the clicks and what actions users take in other channels after receiving the email is crucial to understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns – and making adjustments to improve results. Also, keeping email lists clean and removing unsubscribed and inactive users is more important than ever to keep your IP addresses from being throttled.

How Does Email Marketing For Healthcare Organizations Work?

July 1, 2025
Erik Kangas

Email marketing for healthcare organizations involves targeted communication strategies that help medical facilities, health systems, and healthcare providers engage patients, promote wellness programs, and share educational content while maintaining strict privacy protections and regulatory compliance. Healthcare providers, payers, and suppliers use email marketing for healthcare organizations to improve patient engagement, increase appointment bookings, promote health screenings, and provide valuable medical information to their communities. Understanding how email marketing for healthcare organizations functions helps medical facilities develop compliant communication strategies that support patient care objectives while respecting privacy regulations and building stronger relationships with patients.

Regulatory Compliance and Privacy Requirements

Email marketing for healthcare organizations must comply with HIPAA privacy rules, CAN-SPAM Act requirements, and state privacy laws that govern how patient information can be used for communication purposes. HIPAA regulations prevent healthcare organizations from using protected health information for marketing without explicit patient authorization, except for face-to-face communications or promotional gifts of nominal value. This means campaigns targeting patients based on their medical conditions or treatment history require specific written consent.

The CAN-SPAM Act applies to all commercial healthcare communications, requiring clear sender identification, truthful subject lines, and functional unsubscribe mechanisms in every email. Healthcare organizations must include their physical addresses and honor opt-out requests within 10 business days. State privacy laws may impose additional restrictions regarding consent requirements and patient rights that organizations must evaluate and implement.

Patient authorization requirements vary depending on the type of information used and the purpose of the communication. General health education campaigns may not require authorization, while targeted campaigns based on specific medical conditions require explicit written consent that clearly explains how patient information will be used.

Content Strategy and Patient Education Focus

Email marketing for healthcare organizations should prioritize educational content and patient value over promotional messaging to build trust and establish credibility. Health education campaigns featuring seasonal wellness tips, preventive care reminders, and disease management information provide genuine value to recipients while supporting organizational objectives. Content should be evidence-based, medically accurate, and reviewed by qualified healthcare professionals.

Patient education campaigns can address chronic disease management, medication adherence, and lifestyle modifications when properly targeted and authorized. These campaigns help patients make informed healthcare decisions while positioning organizations as trusted healthcare partners. Community health initiatives allow organizations to address public health concerns and seasonal health risks through email communications.

Content personalization must balance engagement benefits with privacy requirements and regulatory constraints. Basic personalization such as names and preferred languages can improve response rates without requiring extensive patient information use. More detailed personalization based on health conditions requires specific patient authorization and careful data management.

Technology Platforms and Integration

Email marketing for healthcare organizations requires specialized platforms that support HIPAA compliance, patient privacy protections, and integration with existing healthcare systems. These platforms must provide business associate agreements, data encryption, audit logging, and secure data handling procedures that protect patient information during campaign creation and delivery.

Integration with electronic health record systems allows organizations to leverage patient preferences and communication history while maintaining privacy protections. Automated workflows can trigger campaigns based on appointment scheduling or routine care intervals without exposing sensitive medical information. List management capabilities should support consent tracking, preference management, and compliance reporting for regulatory reviews.

Security features including encryption, access controls, and audit trails protect patient information throughout the email marketing process. Platforms should provide detailed logging of campaign activities and patient data usage to support compliance demonstrations and incident investigations.

Patient Segmentation and Performance Measurement

Email marketing for healthcare organizations should focus on demographic factors, service interests, and communication preferences rather than protected health information whenever possible. Geographic and age-based segmentation can support appropriate messaging without accessing medical records. Service line segmentation enables targeted promotion based on self-reported interests rather than medical history.

Behavioral segmentation based on website interactions or event attendance can inform campaign targeting without using protected health information. Communication preference segmentation allows patients to select email frequency and content types that match their individual preferences, helping maintain engagement while reducing unsubscribe rates.

Performance measurement should use metrics that reflect patient engagement and health outcomes rather than purely commercial indicators. Appointment booking rates, screening completion rates, and patient satisfaction scores provide meaningful performance measurements. Patient feedback mechanisms help organizations understand recipient preferences and identify improvement opportunities.

Long-term performance tracking helps healthcare organizations understand the cumulative impact of email marketing efforts on patient relationships and care utilization. Regular analysis supports continuous improvement and demonstrates the value of patient communication investments to organizational leadership while maintaining focus on patient-centered care objectives.

Is WordPress HIPAA Compliant?

November 5, 2024
Erik Kangas

WordPress itself is not HIPAA compliant out of the box, but it can be configured to create HIPAA compliant websites with additional security measures, proper hosting, and careful plugin selection. The basic WordPress installation lacks necessary security features for protected health information, but healthcare organizations can implement encryption, access controls, and security plugins to achieve compliance. Developing a HIPAA compliant WordPress site requires specialized knowledge and ongoing maintenance.

WordPress Core Platform Limitations

The standard WordPress installation lacks several features needed for HIPAA compliance. WordPress stores content in a database that doesn’t include encryption by default. User authentication systems in basic WordPress installations don’t meet healthcare security standards for password complexity or multi-factor authentication. The platform’s logging capabilities fall short of HIPAA audit requirements that track user actions and data access. Default form handling transmits information without encryption protections. These limitations mean healthcare organizations need significant modifications before using WordPress for patient information. Many healthcare providers work with developers experienced in both WordPress and healthcare regulations.

Hosting Considerations for WordPress

WordPress websites handling protected health information require HIPAA compliant hosting environments. Standard shared WordPress hosting lacks the security measures and business associate agreements needed for healthcare data. Organizations using WordPress for patient information typically choose dedicated hosting solutions with enhanced security features. The hosting provider must sign a business associate agreement accepting responsibility for data protection. Hosting environments need features like server-level encryption, network monitoring, and physical security controls. HIPAA compliant hosting providers offer WordPress-specific security configurations that address known platform vulnerabilities while maintaining compatibility with WordPress core functions.

Security Plugins and Configurations

WordPress security plugins help address compliance gaps in the standard installation. Authentication plugins add features like multi-factor authentication, password complexity requirements, and account lockout after failed attempts. Encryption plugins help protect data both in transit and at rest within the WordPress database. Firewall plugins block common attack patterns that could compromise patient information. Logging and monitoring plugins create audit trails of user activities and system events. Plugins themselves introduce potential security issues if not properly vetted and maintained. Healthcare organizations can establish a review process for all plugins used on HIPAA compliant WordPress sites.

Form Handling and Patient Data

Healthcare organizations may collect patient information through WordPress forms. Securing these forms requires other measures than standard WordPress capabilities. Form submissions containing protected health information need encryption during transmission using current security protocols. Data storage after form submission requires encryption and access controls. Many healthcare websites use specialized HIPAA compliant form handlers rather than standard WordPress form plugins. Patient portal functionality generally requires custom development or specialized WordPress extensions designed for healthcare use. Form data often integrates with separate electronic health record systems rather than staying within the WordPress database.

Theme and Plugin Security Risks

WordPress themes and plugins are seen as challenges for HIPAA compliance by entities. Third-party code may contain vulnerabilities that compromise protected health information. Healthcare organizations must carefully evaluate all themes and plugins before installation on compliant websites. Security scanning helps identify potential vulnerabilities in installed components. Plugin updates require testing in development environments before applying to live websites. Custom theme development often provides better security control than third-party themes with unknown code quality.

Maintenance and Compliance Documentation

HIPAA compliant WordPress websites require ongoing maintenance and documentation. Regular updates address security vulnerabilities in the WordPress core, themes, and plugins. System backups protect against data loss while maintaining appropriate encryption. Access reviews verify that user permissions remain appropriate over time. Security testing identifies new vulnerabilities as they emerge. Compliance documentation includes records of all security measures, risk assessments, and system changes. This attention ensures WordPress installations remain compliant as technology and regulations evolve.