How to Guide: HIPAA Compliant Email Marketing Campaigns

Email remains one of the most effective marketing channels, providing companies with a simple, yet powerful, way to facilitate engagement and strengthen their connection with their customers. Firstly, email is an almost universally adopted communication channel, with 92% of internet users in the US having an email account – resulting in a staggering 9.7 billion emails sent every day.

Better still, it’s a cost-effective form of communication, and because the cost of conducting an email marketing campaign only marginally increases as it scales (e.g., sending millions of emails instead of thousands) – it offers a generous ROI on an org’s marketing spend. Considering these factors, it’s little wonder that email marketing has been widely adopted and employed to great effect by companies in every industry.

However, healthcare organizations that want to execute email marketing campaigns to engage with their patients are faced with several crucial considerations that limit their approach. Their first key consideration is that they must safeguard their patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI): maintaining their right to privacy and preventing the exposure of highly sensitive data. Consequently, and for good reason, the handling of PHI and how it can be used in communications is tightly regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

What Is PHI?

Before we get into the particulars of HIPAA-compliant email marketing campaigns, it’s wise to clearly define what PHI is – what actually counts as Protected Health Information.

Many healthcare organizations assume that sensitive patient data includes information such as their:

• Name
• Address
• Email Address
• Social Security Number
• Insurance Details

However, while this data is indeed sensitive and must be safeguarded – it isn’t necessarily PHI. This is, in truth, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and in regards to HIPAA compliance, these personal details are called identifiers.

Subsequently, the HIPAA Privacy Rule defines PHI as individually identifiable information that relates to:

• A person’s past, present, or future physical or mental health condition(s)
• The provision of a person’s healthcare
• Past, present, or future payment for the provision of said healthcare

Now, taking these two things into account, PHI is PII that relates to an individual’s healthcare; this is a key distinction to bear in mind when developing HIPAA-compliant email marketing campaigns.

What Are the Consequences of HIPAA Non-Compliance?

So now we’ve covered what constitutes PHI, let’s briefly discuss the consequences of mishandling PHI in your email marketing campaigns. Not only are HIPAA violations easy to succumb to but they also result in  considerable costs for organizations.

First, there are the financial penalties of non-compliance – which include fines, legal fees (in the event of a lawsuit) and the resulting compensation. In some cases, a company may be subject to penalties from the state they operate in.

The financial implications are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to non-HIPAA-compliant email marketing campaigns. Firstly, if a security breach caused the exposure of PHI, this will disrupt normal operations, while the breach is contained and additional mitigation measures are implemented to ensure it doesn’t recur.

However, the most significant consequence is the potential damage to a company’s reputation. Potential customers will (justifiably) feel they can’t trust you with their sensitive data, resulting in loss of revenue. Similarly, supply chain partners may feel the same way – compromising key business relationships.

What Are the Prerequisites for HIPAA-Compliant Marketing Email Campaigns?

So having discussed the consequences of non-compliance, how can you make your email marketing campaigns HIPAA compliant? Here are a few essential steps.

• Sign a Business Associates Agreement (BAA) With Your Email Marketing Provider: a BAA is an essential component of HIPAA compliance: outlining your and your email provider’s responsibilities in safeguarding PHI.
• Obtain Patient Consent: you must get an individual’s permission to use their PHI; this could be done digitally (i.e., when entering data into an online form), in writing, or even verbally over the phone.
• Encrypting PHI in Transit: i.e., when including it in email communications sent to patients and customers. This makes it incomprehensible to cybercriminals in the event it’s intercepted.
• Encrypted Data at Rest: as well as encrypting sensitive patient data when including it in your email marketing campaigns, you must encrypt it where it resides.

Best Practices For Creating Successful HIPAA-Compliant  Email Marketing Campaigns 

To round out this guide, here are a few strategies for making your HIPAA-compliant email marketing campaigns effective, to maximize engagement with your patients and clients.

• Segmentation: divide your audience into smaller segments according to their shared characteristic, e.g., medical condition. 
• Personalization: having segmented your customer base, customize your communications with PHI to make them as relevant and, subsequently, intriguing as possible.
• Integration: unify your HIPAA-compliant email platform with the other systems in your digital ecosystem in which PHI resides, such as CRMs, EHRs, CEPs and CDPs. This centralizes patient data, avoiding repetition and maintaining accuracy.
• Automation: leverage the automation features of your email delivery platforms to streamline your marketing campaigns. This not only reduces the admin overhead of implementing Email Marketing Campaigns but also helps ensure consistency in your communications – creating a stronger rapport with the recipients.
• Differentiate Between Marketing and Transactional Emails: marketing emails are geared towards promotion or persuasion. Transactional emails, in contrast, are triggered by patient actions, e.g., making an appointment, purchasing a product or service, etc.  In light of this, develop different strategies for each type of email to maximize their efficacy.

Down the How To Execute HIPAA-Compliant Email Marketing Campaigns eBook

LuxSci has compiled its decades of experience in helping healthcare organizations carry out HIPAA-compliant patient engagement campaigns into a comprehensive eBook: How To Execute HIPAA-Compliant Email Marketing Campaigns, which expands and details the advice presented in this guide.

Download the How-to Guide today and learn how to ensure your email marketing campaigns are both HIPAA-compliant and as potent as possible, driving better health outcomes for your patients, while helping your organization reach its growth objectives.