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Posts Tagged ‘hipaa’

How to send unlimited email to someone for free and without authentication or SSL

Friday, September 14th, 2012

We field questions daily from customers who need to configure some special software or piece of equipment to send them email, but can’t because their SMTP logins require authentication (e.g. a username and password), or their software/hardware cannot be configured to connect to specific SMTP ports, or maybe because their logins require SSL/TLS for transmission security but their device doesn’t support that (and isn’t sending anything sensitive anyway).

Of course, software can be updated; there are always newer or more expensive devices that have more robust email sending capabilities.  However, additional time and/or cost is rarely the ideal solution. If the program/device will not be sending sensitive data and the email stream does not require end-to-end protection (e.g. for HIPAA compliance), then there is a very easy work around to get the device to send your mail.

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Jump/Thumb Drives and PHI Don’t Mix

Friday, July 20th, 2012

It is very common for the staff of small and medium sized healthcare organizations to store patient data on USB Flash Drives (a.k.a. Jump Drives or Thumb Drives).  This is universally a bad idea and guarantees non-compliance with HIPAA.  Below, I will discuss why and suggest some alternatives to accomplish the same ends.

While this article discusses USB Flash drives in particular, the same arguments hold for all portable media — full sized USB hard drives, writable CDs and DVDs, laptops, etc.

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HIPAA 2010: HITECH Impact on Email and Web Outsourcing

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Surprise!  HIPAA has changed, gotten bigger, and grown teeth.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, or The Obama Stimulus Bill), signed into law in February 2009, includes new, more comprehensive provisions for HIPAA. These provisions are in a section of the bill known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH).

For organizations that are already required to abide by HIPAA (i.e. the “Covered Entities” of HIPAA), HITECH adds the following requirements:

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Premium High Volume Outbound Email Service

Monday, June 1st, 2009

High Volume EmailLuxSci’s High Volume Outbound Email Sending Service, released earlier this year, has been a notable success.  Our service permits the sending of legitimate bulk email messages and also provides reliable “smarthost” services.  However, the offering is restricted to SMTP services and does not include the many outbound email processing tools present in LuxSci’s Premium Email service.  I.e. see  LuxSci Outbound Email: 5 Sending Options Compared!

Since High Volume Mail was offered, we have had many requests to send HIPAA-compliant bulk outbound email, i.e. newsletters and notices that contain protected health information (PHI) .  In such cases, SecureLine should be used to encrypt the outbound email in a way that can be opened by any recipient, but which is still secure.  Unfortunately, integration with SecureLine is not a feature of our Basic High Volume service.

LuxSci has responded by releasing Premium High Volume Outbound Email Service.  This is essentially Premium Email hosting with:

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HIPAA / Medical Privacy Agreement

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

LuxSci has a new Business Associate addendum to its Master Services Agreement that covers medical privacy concerns for all clients that are subject to the HIPAA regulations. This contract addendum is automatically included by reference in the contracts for all new accounts. It is also available to any existing account that would like to have it added to its current contract.

This has been updated again for the 2010 HIPAA HITECH changes. For more information, see HIPAA HITECH Business Associate Agreement and LuxSci Account Requirements.