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Healthcare Marketing Trends

Thursday, January 2nd, 2025

Here are some healthcare marketing trends you should consider adopting.

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? 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 when specific criteria are met and use dynamic content to personalize the email content. 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, 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. 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.

 

One bonus personalization tip- create culturally competent emails and use the patient’s preferred language. Healthcare communications should not leave anyone behind. With the right tools, it’s easier than ever to segment your audience based on their language preferences and create alternate content that resonates. 

 

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 are unreliable 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. Also, keeping email lists clean and removing unsubscribed and inactive users is more important than ever to keep your IP addresses from being throttled. 

Tags: artificial intelligence, email api, email automation, email deliverability, email marketing, healthcare marketing, hipaa, personalization, reporting metrics, spam
Posted in HIPAA Marketing
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HIPAA Compliant Email Marketing: FAQ

Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

Email is an essential channel for most marketers but for healthcare they must use HIPAA compliant email marketing. HIPAA regulations raise many questions for healthcare marketers who need to execute email marketing campaigns without violating patient privacy.

HIPAA is a complicated law that offers a lot of guidance but does not require the use of any specific technologies to protect patient privacy. The ambiguity causes a lot of confusion for marketers trying to integrate email into their marketing strategy. This article addresses some frequently asked questions about HIPAA-compliant email marketing and offers advice for securing patient data and futureproofing your marketing.

Do generic practice newsletters need to be protected?

Some marketers assume practice newsletters do not contain health information and, therefore, do not fall under HIPAA requirements. However, this assumption is often incorrect. Many are surprised to learn that protected health information can be implied from seemingly benign information.

In this way, many generic email newsletters often indirectly contain PHI because they are sent to lists of current patients. Email addresses are individually identifiable and combined with the email content; it may imply that they are patients of the practice. For example, say you send a “generic” newsletter to the patients of a dialysis clinic. An eavesdropper may be able to infer that the recipients receive dialysis. Therefore, the email reveals information about an individual’s health treatment, is PHI, and should be secured in compliance with HIPAA regulations.

In some cases, it can be complicated to determine what is PHI and what is not. Using a HIPAA-compliant marketing solution is best to avoid ambiguity and ensure security.

How Do I Find a HIPAA Compliant Email Marketing Vendor?

Unfortunately, using broadly popular email marketing platforms is not recommended. Many of these platforms were designed for e-commerce businesses and are not secure enough to meet HIPAA requirements. We do not recommend using a solution not specifically equipped to meet the healthcare industry’s unique security and compliance needs. To determine if your email marketing provider is compliant, they must meet three broad criteria at a minimum.

  1. The vendor must sign a Business Associate Agreement outlining how they plan to secure your data and what they will do in the event of a breach.
  2. Encrypt data at rest when it is stored in their systems.
  3. Encrypt email messages and data in transit as it is sent to the recipients.

 

email marketing vendor comparison

Not all vendors will be up to the task. Carefully vet your email marketing vendors to ensure they are taking steps to secure data and protect patient privacy.

What is an Email API?

API is an acronym that stands for “Application Programming Interface.” An email API gives applications (like CRMs, CDPs, or EHRs) the ability to send emails using data from the application. Email APIs also return campaign data to the platform or dashboards so you can assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Trigger-based transactional or marketing emails are ideal for sending with an email API. In this situation, emails are sent when pre-determined conditions in the application are met. Healthcare organizations may use email APIs to send appointment reminders using electronic health records system data about a patient’s upcoming appointment.

Email APIs enable the automation of common email workflows. However, they are not interchangeable with email marketing platforms. Email APIs do not include the contact management systems standard in most email marketing platforms because all that data lives within the application they connect to. In addition, email API tools typically do not include drag-and-drop editor tools or other design features that help your emails stand out.

Does HIPAA permit providers to send unencrypted emails with PHI to patients?

Encryption is an addressable standard under the HIPAA Security Rule, but that does not mean it is optional. The HIPAA Privacy Rule does not explicitly forbid unencrypted email. Still, it does state that “other safeguards should be applied to protect privacy reasonably, such as limiting the amount or type of information disclosed through the unencrypted email.”

In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services also states that “covered entities are permitted to send individuals unencrypted emails if they have advised the individual of the risk, and the individual still prefers the unencrypted email.” Some organizations use waivers to inform patients of the risks and acquire permission to send unencrypted emails.

However, we do not recommend this approach for several reasons:

  1. Keeping track of waivers over time and recording status changes and updates is challenging.
  2. Signed waivers do not insulate you from the consequences of a HIPAA breach.
  3. And finally, using waivers to send unencrypted emails doesn’t eliminate your other HIPAA obligations like data retention and disposal. Using a HIPAA-compliant solution is more manageable and eliminates ambiguity.

Can patients exercise their right of access by receiving PHI via unencrypted email?

Yes, but they must be fully informed of the risks and sign waivers acknowledging them. The caveats in the previous answer apply. It’s always better to utilize an encryption tool to protect patient data.

Is Microsoft 365 or Exchange 365 encryption sufficient for marketing emails?

Microsoft 365 can be configured with Office Message Encryption (OME) to comply with HIPAA. However, the program is not well-suited to send marketing emails. OME primarily relies on portal pickup encryption, in which the message is stored securely on a server and requires the recipient to log in to the portal to read the email. If you are a marketer trying to increase engagement, the portal adds a barrier to access that many will not cross. Light-PHI marketing messages are best sent using TLS encryption. TLS-encrypted messages arrive in the recipient’s inbox just like a regular email and do not require a user to log in to read the message.

TLS versus Portal Pickup email encryption

In addition, Microsoft 365 is not configured to send high volumes of email. If you plan to send large marketing campaigns, you could unintentionally disrupt regular business communications by sending all the messages through the same infrastructure. You should separate your business and marketing email sending to protect your IP reputation and achieve your desired sending throughput.

What are common email marketing use cases for healthcare?

Email marketing in healthcare is not restricted to boring practice newsletters. When you utilize tools that enable the use of PHI in your targeting and personalization efforts, the sky is the limit. With consumer preferences shifting toward digital communications, marketers willing to utilize the email channel and tactics like segmentation and personalization can see better results.

Email is an excellent way to communicate with patients. A sampling of ways that healthcare marketers can use email include:

  • engaging patients in their healthcare journey
  • educating patients about their healthcare conditions and treatments
  • improving attendance and scheduling
  • retaining patients
  • increasing preventative procedures
  • collecting data on the patient experience
  • improving patient satisfaction

Conclusion

HIPAA can be difficult to understand, but choosing the right tools and adequately vetting your vendors makes it easy to execute HIPAA-compliant email marketing campaigns. If you are interested in learning more about LuxSci’s easy-to-use, Secure Marketing platform, please contact our sales team.

Tags: email api, email marketing, encrypted email, faq, hipaa compliance, HIPAA-compliant email marketing, mutual consent, quasi compliance, quasi hipaa compliance, unencrypted email
Posted in HIPAA Marketing
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What are Secure Email APIs?

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023

APIs are just one tool that organizations can use to streamline operations and automate processes. Healthcare organizations can utilize secure email APIs to save time and streamline their operations. This article explains what secure email APIs are and ways that healthcare organizations can use them while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

email api workflow

What is an API?

First, let’s take a minute to review what an API is. API is an acronym that stands for “Application Programming Interface.” APIs enable companies to open their applications’ data and functionality to external third-party developers, business partners, and internal departments. They leverage each other’s data and functionality through a documented interface. APIs simplify app development by allowing applications to work together.

APIs help business and IT teams collaborate. Let’s look at a simple example to illustrate how they work. If a smartwatch developer wanted to display the weather on the watch face, they could use the Weather Underground API to source current weather data and local forecasts. Application developers do not have to create an entirely new weather database and keep it updated. Instead, the API permits them to use the Weather Underground’s meteorological data in their application.

APIs enable information to flow both ways. The smartwatch can display Weather Underground forecasts, and the API can report data back to the Weather Underground. This functionality enables interoperability and data sharing.

What Are Email APIs?

An email API allows applications to send emails and deliver email data to other systems. Email APIs are often used to send transactional emails from applications like CRMs, EHRs, and other databases. Trigger-based emails are ideal for sending with an email API. In this situation, emails are sent when pre-determined conditions are met. For example, an order confirmation is a transactional, trigger-based email. A person buys a product online, the transaction is processed within the e-commerce application, and an email is sent to the buyer with their transaction details. The email is sent automatically with an email API and pulls data about their purchase from the application into the email message to provide a personalized record of their order details. The API can also return data to the application about the email delivery, including information about who opened and clicked on a link within the message.

When to Use Secure Email APIs?

When transmitting information that may be sensitive, it’s essential to utilize email APIs that offer additional security features. For example, suppose healthcare organizations want to use email APIs to send appointment reminders from their electronic health record system. As a covered entity subject to HIPAA regulations, those emails contain ePHI and must be encrypted to protect that data as required under the HIPAA Security Rule.

Organizations subject to regulatory compliance regulations should ensure they utilize a secure email API service that enables them to encrypt their email messages (in addition to meeting other technical security standards).

secure email api

What is Required for Email API Security?

Email encryption is essential to help organizations meet compliance requirements and protect data. However, secure email APIs also include additional features to help protect employee accounts and client data. Some key email API security features include:

Authentication

Controlling access to the API is essential to ensure unauthorized users cannot send emails. Email APIs use access tokens to grant specific users access to resources and data and ensure that only authorized users can send emails.

You can also enable DMARC, SPF, and DKIM with email API sending to prevent spoofing and build trust with your users. These protocols help prevent impersonation and improve email deliverability.

Access Controls

Access to the API should be logged and reviewable to make it easy to detect suspicious activity. To meet compliance regulations, you must keep audit logs that track who accessed sensitive data and when.

Benefits of Secure Email APIs

Imagine if it was an employee’s responsibility to create and send every unique appointment reminder email for a practice. It would be completely overwhelming. Besides saving time, some of the main benefits of email APIs include:

      • Easy to use and implement
      • Cost savings
      • Email deliverability improvements
      • Email list management
      • Reporting and analytics functionality
      • Personalization and customization
      • Enterprise-grade security

Secure Email APIs Use Cases for Healthcare

Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to improve the patient experience. Online shoppers expect to see those order confirmation emails within a few minutes of finalizing their orders. Healthcare consumers using online communication tools expect the same experience from their providers. By expediting and personalizing patient communications, email APIs can help increase patient satisfaction.

Some examples of the types of emails that healthcare providers can send using an email API include:

  • Welcome emails
  • Appointment reminders
  • Patient satisfaction surveys
  • Flu shot and vaccine reminders
  • Password resets and other transactional emails

It works like this: the developer creates the email templates in advance and the criteria for email sending. The email is automatically sent when the conditions are met. For example, a developer may trigger a welcome email to send when:

1) a new patient is added to the database, and

2) their first appointment date is set.

Email APIs can also pull information from the patient record to personalize the email. The welcome email may include the patient’s name and the date of their first appointment.

Other than updating the patient record, office administrators do not need to take additional actions to send the email. The email API automatically sends customized emails when appropriate, saving time and stress for administrative employees.

Conclusion

Email APIs are an essential part of digital health transformation and interoperability. Healthcare organizations should explore how APIs can improve their workflows and improve efficiency. LuxSci provides HIPAA-compliant and secure email APIs with Secure High Volume Email Sending. Contact us today to learn more.

Tags: api, email api, email automation, email workflows, hipaa compliant api, operational efficiency, secure api, secure email api, Transactional email
Posted in HIPAA Email Compliance, HIPAA Marketing
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New Feature: API Priority Queue

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022

Maximize efficiency by employing our new email-sending prioritization features. Secure High Volume Email customers utilizing APIs for sending can now set a message priority to determine the order in which messages are sent out.

email api priority queue

What is the API Priority Queue Feature?

This feature allows customers to set a priority on email messages sent via API. Customers can pass an optional parameter in their API to set the message priority on a scale of 0 – 9. Zero is the lowest priority, nine is the highest, and four is the default priority setting.

The API priority queue feature allows customers to send out higher-priority messages faster when the sending queue is already long.

Why is the API Priority Queue Useful?

Traditionally, all customer emails were processed in a “first come, first serve” method. Customers can now use the priority queue to determine the sending order when they simultaneously send transactional and marketing messages via the API.

For example, time-sensitive password resets could be stuck in the queue while a large blast of marketing emails is transmitted. Depending on the size of the email list and server capacity, the password reset email could be held up for several minutes to even hours. This situation is unacceptable for many business use cases.

Customers can designate transactional emails as high-priority with the API priority queue feature enabled. When transactional emails are given a high-priority status, they can jump the line and go out before less time-sensitive emails like marketing messages.

How to Utilize the API Priority Queue

This feature is only available to Secure High Volume Email customers utilizing APIs to send emails. It does not work for SMTP sending. Customers can add the optional parameter and desired value while crafting their API call to send emails. Additionally, customers can use the API configuration editor in the LuxSci UI to change the default priority value for all messages. You can review the details of our API by going to: https://luxsci.com/rest-api.html.

Tags: api, email api, luxsci news, marketing email, new feature, password reset, secure high volume, secure high volume email, sending priority, sending queue, Transactional email
Posted in New Feature Announcements
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