LuxSci Establishes New Headquarters Offices in Cambridge, Mass.

Business Solutions, Company Announcements, Industry News
LuxSci
September 3, 2024

We’re thrilled to announce the opening of LuxSci’s new headquarters offices at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts!

The move marks another milestone in our continuing journey to innovate and grow in secure healthcare communications. The new workspace aims to bring our people and teams together for in-person interactions and collaboration, and to better connect with our customers, partners and thought leaders. Located in the heart of one of the world’s most prestigious educational and technology hubs, our new office space reflects our roots and connections to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and our founder Erik Kangas, an MIT alumnus and advisor.

A Strategic Move for Continued Growth and Expansion

Opening our Cambridge office, part of the Industrious complex of offices, is not just about a change in location. The new office puts us at the center of cutting-edge technology in a thriving area for healthcare innovation. As a company deeply rooted in delivering the latest in secure, HIPAA-compliant communication solutions, this move allows us to leverage the rich talent pool and dynamic environment that Cambridge and the Greater Boston area have to offer.

Leading the Way in HIPAA Compliance for Healthcare Communications

At LuxSci, we’re proud to be the leader in HIPAA-compliant communication solutions for the healthcare industry, which includes serving some of the largest organizations in the US. With over two decades of experience, we understand the critical importance of safeguarding sensitive patient information and protected health information (PHI), but also how to increase patient and customer engagement.

The Next Step into Personalized Healthcare Engagement

Effective healthcare communication goes beyond just compliance—it’s about creating personalized and meaningful interactions with patients and customers. This often requires healthcare organizations to move beyond patient portals to open-up new communications channels and use cases, including email, marketing, text and forms—all in a HIPAA-compliant way. By protecting PHI data and using it in your communications for better personalization, you can deliver improved experiences and better outcomes for everyone involved.

Multi-Channel Suite of Secure Healthcare Communications Solutions

Today, LuxSci offers a suite of secure healthcare communication solutions, including support for high volume email, marketing, text messaging, and forms. As the demand for secure, compliant communication tools grows, LuxSci is at the forefront of delivering solutions that keep up with regulations and protect you from the latest threats.

“With our new Cambridge office, we’re launching the company into a new future with valuable connections to our past and where LuxSci was born,” said Mark Leonard, CEO of LuxSci. “Cambridge offers an unparalleled environment for innovation, and we’re excited to to bring our employees, partners and customers together – and to be part of this vibrant community.”

Want to see for yourself?

LuxSci

Get in touch

Find The Best Solution For Your Organization

Talk To An Expert & Get A Quote

First Name

Last Name

Work Email

Phone

Company

Type of Inquiry

Company Size

Message (optional)

Acceptance

I consent to be contacted by LuxSci for this inquiry and other relevant content, products, and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. We're committed to your privacy. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy.

A member of our staff will reach out to you

Search

Get Your Free E-Book!

LuxSci High Email Deliverability Best Practices Paper

What you’ll learn:

Zero Trust Email Security in Healthcare: A Requirement for Sending PHI?

April 15, 2026
Pete Wermter

As healthcare organizations embrace digital patient engagement and AI-assisted care delivery, one reality is becoming impossible to ignore: traditional perimeter-based security is no longer enough. Email, still the backbone of patient and operational communications, has become one of the most exploited attack surfaces.

As a result, Zero Trust email security in healthcare is moving from buzzword to necessity.

At LuxSci, we see this shift firsthand. Healthcare providers, payers, and suppliers are no longer asking if they should modernize their security posture, but how to do it without disrupting care delivery or patient engagement.

Our advice: Start with a Zero Trust-aligned dedicated infrastructure that puts you in total control of email security.

Let’s go deeper!

What Is Zero Trust Email Security in Healthcare?

At its core, Zero Trust email security in healthcare applies the principle of “never trust, always verify” to every email interaction involving protected health information (PHI).

This means:

Continuous authentication of users and systems
Device and environment validation before granting access
Dynamic, policy-based encryption for every message
No implicit trust, even within internal networks

Unlike legacy approaches that assume safety inside the network perimeter, Zero Trust treats every email, user, and endpoint as a potential risk.

Why Email Is a Critical Gap in Zero Trust Strategies

While many healthcare organizations have begun adopting Zero Trust frameworks for network access and identity, email often remains overlooked.

This is a major problem.

Email is where:

PHI is most frequently shared
Human error is most likely to occur
Phishing and impersonation attacks are most effective

Without a Zero Trust email security approach, organizations leave a critical gap in their defense strategy, one that attackers can actively exploit.

Healthcare Challenge: Personalized Communication and PHI Risk

Modern healthcare ecosystems are highly distributed:

Care teams span multiple locations
Third-party vendors access sensitive systems
Patients expect digital, personalized communication

This creates a complex web of PHI exchange—much of it through email.

At the same time, compliance requirements like HIPAA demand that PHI email security is addressed at all times.

The result is a growing tension between:

Security and compliance
Usability, engagement, and better outcomes

From Static Encryption to Intelligent, Adaptive Protection

Traditional email encryption methods often rely on:

Manual triggers
Static rules
User judgment

This introduces risk. A modern zero trust email security in healthcare model replaces this with:

Automated encryption policies based on content and context
Flexible encryption methods tailored to recipient capabilities – TLS, Portal Fallback, PGP, S/MIME
Seamless user experiences that human error – automated email encryption, including content

At LuxSci, our approach to secure healthcare communications is built around this philosophy. By automating encryption and providing each customer with a zero trust-aligned dedicated infrastructure, organizations can protect PHI without relying on end-user decisions or the actions of other vendors on the same cloud, significantly reducing risk while improving performance, including email deliverability.

Aligning Zero Trust with HIPAA and Emerging Frameworks

Zero Trust is not a replacement for compliance, it’s an enabler. A well-implemented Zero Trust approach helps organizations:

Meet HIPAA requirements for PHI protection
Reduce the likelihood of breaches
Strengthen audit readiness and risk management

More importantly, it positions healthcare organizations to align with emerging cybersecurity frameworks that increasingly emphasize identity, data-centric security, and continuous verification.

PHI Protection Starts with Email

Zero Trust is no longer a conceptual framework, it’s becoming the operational standard for healthcare IT, infrastructure, and data security teams.

But success depends on execution. Email remains the most widely used, and vulnerable, communication channels in healthcare. Without addressing it directly, Zero Trust strategies will fall short.

Here are 3 tips to stay on track:

Treat every email as a potential risk
Automate encryption at scale – secure every email
Enable personalized patient engagement with secure PHI in email

At LuxSci, we believe that HIPAA compliant email is the foundation for the future of secure healthcare communications, protecting PHI while enabling better patient engagement and better outcomes.

Reach out today if you want to learn more from our LuxSci experts.

What Sets B2B Marketing In The Healthcare Industry Apart?

April 14, 2026
Kai Haughney

B2B marketing in the healthcare industry runs through a buying environment shaped by review, caution, and internal scrutiny. A vendor may catch interest quickly, yet a deal still has to survive procurement, legal input, operational questions, and, in some cases, clinical oversight. That changes the tone and structure of effective outreach. Buyers want clear information, credible framing, and content that holds up when shared across teams. Strong campaigns account for those conditions from the first touch, giving decision makers useful material at the right point in the conversation.

How B2B marketing in the healthcare industry differs from other sectors

Healthcare buying carries a heavier internal burden than many commercial categories. A decision can affect patient related workflows, staff time, data handling, vendor risk, and budget planning all at once. That wider impact shapes how people read. A finance lead may scan for commercial logic and resource use. An operations leader may think immediately about rollout pressure and process disruption. An IT contact may focus on access, integration, and control. Messaging has to stand up to each of those viewpoints. That is why strong healthcare outreach tends to move with more restraint, more clarity, and more attention to proof than campaigns built for faster sales environments.

Trust within B2B marketing in the healthcare industry

Trust grows through judgment on the page. Buyers notice inflated language very quickly, especially when it appears in sectors where risk and accountability are part of everyday work. A polished headline can attract attention, though the body copy still has to carry weight. Clear examples help. Plain explanations help. So does a tone that sounds measured enough for someone to forward internally without hesitation. A payer team may want to see how a service affects review speed or administrative flow. A provider group may care about intake, coordination, or staff workload. A supplier may look for signs that communication across partners will become smoother and easier to manage. Credibility builds when the writing shows a close read of the reader’s world.

Buying committees do not think alike

Most healthcare deals are shaped by several people with different pressures attached to their roles. Procurement may be looking for vendor reliability and a smoother approval process. Compliance may read for privacy exposure and documentation. Operations may focus on practical fit with current workflows. Finance may want a clearer commercial case before the conversation goes any further. Those concerns do not compete with one another so much as stack on top of one another, which is why broad messaging tends to flatten out. Better campaigns anticipate that mix. One sequence can speak to efficiency and team workload. Another can support legal and compliance review. A third can frame the economic rationale in language senior stakeholders will recognise immediately.

Content that helps a deal move

Healthcare content earns its place when it gives buyers something they can use, discuss, and circulate. A short article on referral bottlenecks can help an operations lead frame the problem more clearly. A concise guide to secure communication can help internal teams ask better questions during review. A comparison page on implementation models can help a buyer weigh practical tradeoffs before a call is even booked. Useful content creates momentum because it fits the way decisions are made. It enters the conversation early, gives people sharper language for internal discussion, and keeps the subject alive between meetings. That is where strong work starts to separate itself from content written simply to fill a calendar.

Measuring progress with better signals

Healthcare teams get a clearer picture when they look past surface numbers and pay attention to the signs attached to real interest. Repeat visits from the same account can matter more than a large burst of low value traffic. A reply from an operations contact may tell you more than a high open rate. Visits to implementation, privacy, or procurement pages can indicate that the discussion is moving into a more serious stage.

Patterns like these help commercial teams judge where attention is gathering and where timing is starting to matter. Good B2B marketing in the healthcare industry supports that process by creating sharper entry points for sales, stronger context for follow up, and a more informed path from early curiosity to active evaluation.

Why Does B2B Healthcare Email Marketing Matter To Healthcare Buyers?

April 14, 2026
Erik Kangas

B2B healthcare email marketing is the practice of using email to reach healthcare business audiences with timely, relevant communication that supports trust, evaluation, and purchase decisions. In healthcare, that means more than sending promotional copy. Buyers want proof that a vendor understands procurement realities, privacy expectations, clinical workflows, and the pace of internal review. When the message is well judged, email helps move a conversation forward without forcing it. It can introduce a problem, frame the business case, and give decision makers something useful to circulate inside the company while they weigh next steps.

What makes B2B healthcare email marketing work in real buying cycles?

The difference between ignored email and useful email is context. Healthcare deals rarely move on impulse, and very few readers want a sales pitch in their inbox after one click or one download. Good B2B healthcare email marketing takes its cues from where the buyer is in the process. A first touch might define a problem in plain terms. A later message may explain implementation questions, privacy considerations, or internal adoption issues. That sequencing matters because healthcare buyers read with caution. They are not just asking whether a product looks good. They are asking whether it can survive legal review, procurement review, and scrutiny from the teams who will live with it day after day.

How does compliance shape B2B healthcare email marketing?

Healthcare email lives under closer scrutiny than email in many other industries. If a campaign touches protected health information, HIPAA enters the conversation immediately, especially the Privacy Rule and Security Rule. Even when outreach is aimed at business contacts, teams still need a disciplined view of what data is stored, who can access it, and how consent, opt out, and message content are handled.

The CAN SPAM Act also matters because sender identity, subject line accuracy, and unsubscribe function are not small details. Strong B2B healthcare email marketing treats compliance as part of message design from the start. That leads to cleaner copy, better internal approval, and fewer edits after legal teams step in.

Which audiences respond best to B2B healthcare email marketing?

Healthcare buying groups are rarely made up of one decision maker. A payer executive may care about administrative efficiency and audit readiness. A provider operations leader may be focused on referral flow, patient intake, or staff time. A supplier may look at partner communication, order handling, or data movement between systems. B2B healthcare email marketing works better when each audience receives language that matches its concerns instead of one generic message sent to everyone. That does not require jargon. It requires precision in the everyday sense of the word. Readers need to feel that the sender understands the pressures attached to their role, not just the industry label attached to their company.

What kind of content earns trust instead of quick deletion?

Healthcare buyers respond well to emails that help them think clearly. A short note that explains why referral leakage happens will land better than a vague message about transformation. A concise example showing how a health plan cut review delays can do more than a page of inflated claims. This is where B2B healthcare email marketing becomes persuasive without sounding pushy. The best messages teach, but they also move. They give the reader one useful idea, one practical example, and one reason to keep the conversation alive. That balance matters because healthcare readers are trained to be skeptical, and skepticism is not a barrier when the content respects it.

How can teams judge whether the program is doing its job?

Open rate alone does not say much in a long healthcare sales cycle. A better read comes from the quality of replies, the number of relevant page visits after a send, the movement of target accounts through the pipeline, and the way contacts share content internally.

B2B healthcare email marketing earns its place when it helps sales teams enter conversations with better timing and better context. If email is drawing the right people back to security pages, implementation pages, or procurement material, that is a useful signal. The real win is steady progress with buyers who need time, evidence, and confidence before they move.

New HIPAA Security Rule Makes Email Encryption Mandatory—Act Now!

April 6, 2026
Pete Wermter

The 2026 Deadline Is Closer Than You Think

The upcoming HIPAA Security Rule overhaul is expected to finalize by mid-2026, and it’s shaping up to be one of the most significant updates in years. Healthcare organizations that fail to prepare, especially when it comes to email security, will face immediate compliance gaps the moment enforcement begins.

Mid-2026 may sound distant, but for healthcare IT and compliance leaders, it’s right around the corner. Regulatory change at this scale doesn’t happen overnight, it requires planning, vendor evaluation, implementation, and internal alignment.

This isn’t a gradual shift. It’s a hard requirement.

Encryption Is About to Become Mandatory

For years, HIPAA has treated encryption as “addressable,” giving organizations flexibility in how they protect sensitive data. That flexibility is disappearing.

Under the updated rule, encryption, particularly for email containing protected health information (PHI), is expected to become a required safeguard.

That means:

Encryption must be automatic and standard for email, not optional
Policies must be enforced consistently
Email security can’t depend on human behavior

If your current system relies on users to manually trigger encryption, it’s already out of step with where compliance is heading. If you’re not encrypting your emails at all, then now is the time to re-evaluate and rest your technology and policies.

Email Is the Weakest Link in Healthcare Security

Email remains the most widely used communication tool in healthcare—and the most common source of data exposure. Every day, sensitive information flows through inboxes, including patient records, lab results, billing details, plan renewals and appointment reminders. Yet many organizations still depend on:

Basic TLS encryption that only works under certain conditions
Manual processes that leave room for human error
Limited visibility into email activity and risk

It only takes one mistake, such as a missed encryption trigger or a misaddressed email, to create a reportable breach. Regulators are well aware of this. That’s why email is a primary focus of the upcoming HIPAA Security Rule changes.

The Cost of Waiting Is Higher Than You Think

Delaying action may feel easier in the short term, but it significantly increases risk. Once the new rule is finalized, organizations without compliant systems may face:

Immediate audit failures
Regulatory penalties
Expensive, rushed remediation efforts
Or worst of all, an email security breach

Beyond financial consequences, there’s also reputational harm. Patients expect their data to be protected. A single incident can immediately erode trust and damage your brand beyond repair.

Waiting until the end of 2026 also means that you’ll be competing with every other organization trying to fix the same problem at the same time, driving up costs and limiting vendor availability.

Most Email Solutions Won’t Meet the New Standard

Here’s the uncomfortable reality: many existing email platforms won’t be enough, especially those that are not HIPAA compliant. Common gaps include:

Encryption that isn’t automatic or policy-driven
Lack of Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Insufficient audit logging for compliance reporting
Lack of Zero Trust security principles

On top of that, vendors without alignment to HITRUST certification and Zero-Trust architectures may struggle to demonstrate the level of assurance regulators will expect moving forward.

If your current solution wasn’t designed specifically for healthcare and HIPAA compliance, it’s likely not ready for what’s coming.

LuxSci Secure Email: Built for What’s Next

This is where a purpose-built solution makes all the difference. LuxSci HIPAA compliant email is designed specifically for healthcare organizations navigating the latest compliance requirements, not just today, but in the future regulatory landscape.

LuxSci delivers:

Automatic, policy-based encryption that removes user guesswork
Advanced DLP controls to prevent PHI exposure before it happens
Comprehensive audit logs to support audits and investigations
Zero Trust architecture that verifies every user and action

Additionally, LuxSci is HITRUST-certified, helping organizations demonstrate a mature and defensible security posture as regulations tighten. Email data protection isn’t about patching gaps, it’s about eliminating them.

Act Now or Pay Later

If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: the time to act is now. Start by asking a few direct questions:

Is our email encryption automatic and enforced?
Do we have full visibility into email activity and risk?
Is our vendor equipped for evolving HIPAA requirements?

If the answer to any of these is unclear, now’s the time to take action. Organizations that move early will have time to implement the right solution, train their teams, and validate compliance. Those that wait will be forced into reactive decisions under pressure.

Conclusion: The Time to Act is Now!

The HIPAA Security Rule overhaul is coming fast, and it’s raising expectations across the board. Encryption will no longer be addressable, but rather mandatory. As a result, email security can no longer be overlooked, and compliance will no longer tolerate gaps.

LuxSci HIPAA compliant email provides a clear, future-ready path for your organization, combining automated encryption, DLP, auditability, and Zero Trust security in one solution.

The real question isn’t whether change is coming. It’s whether your organization will be ready when it does.

Reach out today. We can look at your existing set up, help you identify the gaps, and show you how LuxSci can help!

FAQs

1. When will the updated HIPAA Security Rule take effect?
The changes to the HIPAA Security Rule are expected to be finalized and announced around mid-2026, with enforcement likely soon after, by the end of the year.

2. Will email encryption truly be mandatory?
Yes, current direction strongly indicates encryption will become a required safeguard, which could start later this year or in early 2027.

3. Is TLS encryption enough for compliance?
No. TLS alone does not provide sufficient, guaranteed protection for PHI.

4. Why is HITRUST important in this context?
HITRUST certification demonstrates a vendor’s strong alignment with healthcare security standards and will likely carry more weight with regulators.

5. How does LuxSci help organizations prepare?
HITRUST-certified LuxSci offers secure email with automated encryption, DLP, audit logs, and Zero Trust architecture, helping organizations meet evolving compliance demands.

Is Microsoft Forms HIPAA Compliant?

December 9, 2024
Erik Kangas

Microsoft Forms is considered HIPAA compliant only when properly configured within a Microsoft 365 Enterprise or Business environment with an executed Business Associate Agreement (BAA). Unlike various competing products, Microsoft includes Forms among its covered services in its BAA, allowing healthcare organizations to collect protected health information when implemented with proper security controls and organizational policies.

Microsoft Business Associate Agreement Coverage

Microsoft offers a BAA that covers Microsoft Forms when used within a properly licensed Microsoft 365 environment. This agreement establishes Microsoft as a business associate under HIPAA regulations and defines responsibilities for protecting healthcare information. The BAA covers Microsoft Forms along with other Microsoft 365 services such as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams. Healthcare organizations must execute this agreement before using Microsoft Forms to collect protected health information. The BAA establishes contractual protections beyond standard terms of service and the requirements of becoming HIPAA compliant.

Required Configuration for HIPAA Compliance

Making Microsoft Forms HIPAA compliant requires specific configuration beyond simply signing a BAA. Organizations must implement appropriate access controls using Microsoft 365 administrative settings to restrict form creation and data access to authorized personnel. Enabling audit logging through the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center helps track who creates, modifies, and accesses form data. Organizations need to configure retention policies that align with HIPAA record-keeping requirements. Multi-factor authentication adds an essential security layer for employees accessing protected health information. These technical controls work together to create a compliant environment for collecting patient information.

Security Features in Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms includes several security capabilities that support HIPAA compliance requirements. The platform encrypts data both during transmission and storage within Microsoft’s infrastructure. Access controls integrate with Microsoft 365 identity management to restrict form data visibility. Audit capabilities track form creation, modification, and response activities. Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure meets various compliance certifications beyond HIPAA, including FedRAMP, ISO 27001, and SOC standards. These underlying security measures provide the technical foundation for compliant form implementation when properly configured.

Limitations and Compliance Considerations

While Microsoft Forms can be HIPAA compliant, certain limitations require attention from healthcare organizations. The standard form templates do not include healthcare-specific authorization language required by the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Organizations must customize forms to include appropriate patient consent statements and privacy notices. Certain advanced features like form branching may create complexity in tracking what information appears to which respondents. Organizations need policies governing form creation and approval to ensure all necessary compliance elements appear consistently. These limitations require procedural controls beyond technical configuration.

Implementation Best Practices

Healthcare organizations implementing Microsoft Forms for collecting protected health information can benefit from following established best practices. Creating standardized form templates with pre-approved compliance language helps maintain consistency. Limiting form creation permissions to trained staff members reduces compliance risks. Regular privacy and security training for all employees who handle form data improves organizational awareness. Conducting periodic audits of form content and access patterns identifies potential compliance issues. Integrating forms with secure document storage in SharePoint improves information governance. These practices can enhance the security of patient information collected through electronic forms.

Alternative Form Solutions and Considerations

Microsoft Forms can be considered HIPAA compliant, but organizations should evaluate whether it provides the optimal solution for their needs. Specialized healthcare form platforms may offer additional features like electronic signature capture, direct EHR or CDP integration, or healthcare-specific templates. Microsoft Forms works best for organizations already invested in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem who need integrated form capabilities. The decision between Microsoft Forms and alternatives like LuxSci depends on factors including existing technology investments, integration requirements, complexity of form needs, and organizational resources for configuration and maintenance.

LuxSci Enhances API Authentication for Easier, More Flexible Integrations with EHRs, CDPs and RCM Platforms

April 7, 2025
Erik Kangas

Today, we’re pleased to announce that LuxSci just made it even easier to leverage its powerful high volume email API with the healthcare platforms you rely on most. Whether you’re connecting with an EHR system, Customer Data Platform (CDP), Revenue Capital Management (RCM) platform—or even your contact center or unified communications suite—the new LuxSci API authentication options unlock the flexibility you need to scale and move fast.

In healthcare, connected patient journeys anchored in secure, personalized communications are driving increased engagement and better outcomes for patients and companies—all at a lower cost. From sending secure high-volume transactional emails to targeted marketing and educational communications, your systems and platforms need to talk to each other without friction to achieve the best results. LuxSci’s new API updates make that possible, securely.

What’s New in This Update

Support for OAuth 2.0, API Key, and Basic authentication methods.
Published API YAML specs and SwaggerHub integration for instant testing.
Enhanced multi-factor authentication (MFA) protection with one-time-use codes.

Overview of the LuxSci API

The LuxSci API is built with healthcare IT, security and developer teams in mind. It’s RESTful, secure, and designed for high volume email workflows.

Using industry standards like HTTPS, JSON, and TLS 1.2+, LuxSci’s API delivers fast and reliable integration and communication. Whether you’re sending appointment reminders, test results, preventative care communications, explanation of benefits (EoBs), or new product offers, your messages go out quickly and securely, with best-in-class email deliverability rates of 98% or more.

Designed for Compliance and Performance

LuxSci is HIPAA-compliant and HITRUST Certified, ensuring your healthcare communications stay within the bounds of regulatory compliance, keeping patient and company data secure—even as your email sending volume scales into the millions.

Authentication Gets a Major Upgrade

With the latest API release, LuxSci now supports three industry-standard authentication methods—alongside its proprietary LuxSci Secure option.

Let’s break them down:

OAuth 2.0 – The modern standard. Secure, flexible, and ideal for enterprise-scale integrations.
API Key – Simple and efficient. Ideal for server-to-server use when convenience matters most.
Basic Authentication – Straightforward and widely supported. Great for internal systems and quick testing.

Still Available and Highly Recommended: LuxSci Secure Authentication

For those who want the tightest possible control over API sessions—including HMAC signatures and session revocation—LuxSci Secure authentication remains the best option for customers.

Now, let’s take a closer look at how each of the new authentication methods work:

OAuth 2.0: A Standards-Based Approach

OAuth 2.0 gives you a robust framework to handle both account-level and user-level integrations.

Account-Level Authentication (Client Credentials Flow)

Perfect for system-level access—including EHR, CDP or RCM platform integrations where user context isn’t needed.

User-Level Authentication (Resource Owner Password Credentials Flow)

This method allows API access on behalf of individual users—great for patient portals or provider tools.

Security, Flexibility, and Simplicity Combined

Tokens expire after a default of 15 minutes, ensuring sessions aren’t left open indefinitely. Bonus: No message body signing is required, making integration quick and painless.

API Key: Simple and Straightforward

API Key authentication is as easy as including your credentials in a custom header. No session to manage, no extra handshake steps.

How It Works:

You send the HTTP header

X-API-Key: client_id:client_secret

With each request. That’s it.

Ideal Use Cases

Server-to-server automation
Internal dashboards
Data exports from analytics platforms

Basic Authentication: Familiar and Easy

Basic Auth is a time-tested option. Just Base64 encode your API credentials, include them in an HTTP header, and go.

While not as bulletproof as OAuth or LuxSci Secure, API Key and Basic Auth work fine for less sensitive data or development environments.

Easy Access to YAML Specs and SwaggerHub for API Testing

LuxSci has also published detailed YAML API specifications, making it easier for developers and IT teams to access testing interfaces.

You can find more information on our LuxSci API page.

Improved MFA and Easier Access to Testing Tools

As part of today’s announcement, LuxSci also rolled out new, smarter Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for enhanced web interface login protection.

LuxSci now ensures that each MFA code can be used only once. So, even if a hacker captures your password and MFA code, they are useless for conducting new login sessions. This update helps protect against automated phishing, spoofing, and fake login pages.

Why Healthcare Leaders Trust LuxSci

Best-In-Class Email Deliverability Rates of 98%

We don’t just send your emails—we get them delivered. Our 98%+ deliverability rate is among the highest in the industry, especially for sensitive healthcare data and communications.

HIPAA Compliance and HITRUST Certification

LuxSci checks every box when it comes to data privacy and protection. Trust your messages are safe, every step of the way.

Secure Communication at Scale

From a few thousand appointment reminders to millions of outbound secure emails—LuxSci scales with your business. Today, we work with some of the largest players in the healthcare industry, including Athenahealth, 1800 Contacts, US Healthconnect, Lucerna Health and Eurofins.

FAQs

Q1: What’s the most secure authentication method to use with LuxSci?

A: LuxSci Secure authentication offers the highest security with message signing and session revocation. For more information, visit our API Mechanics page.

Q2: Can I use OAuth 2.0 with user-level access?

A: Yes! Use the Resource Owner Password Credentials Flow (ROPC) to authenticate individual users.

Q3: Where can I find the SwaggerHub API testing tools?

A: LuxSci has published YAML specifications for SwaggerHub. Visit the LuxSci API page for more information.

Q4: How does LuxSci ensure HIPAA compliance in its API?

A: Through encryption, access controls, auditing, and industry certifications like HITRUST.

The Risks of Third-Party Email Integrations for Healthcare Companies

March 10, 2025
Pete Wermter

Today’s healthcare organizations heavily rely on a variety of third-party organizations for a range of services and products. This includes applications (i.e., SaaS solutions), suppliers, partners, and other companies depended upon to serve their patients and customers.

As the healthcare industry evolves, companies will need to increasingly collaborate with external parties, or business associates, which creates several dependencies and risks.

In particular, third-party email platforms are integral to the operations of healthcare companies, and the sensitive nature of protected health information (PHI) contained in email communications raises the stakes exponentially.

This post analyzes the main risks associated with third-party email integrations. From there, we detail the most effective measures for safeguarding your company from the dangers of an insecure integration with an email delivery platform.

What Are The Risks of Third-Party Email Integrations?

Email applications are a pillar of the modern workplace, enabling companies to communicate almost instantly and facilitating greater productivity and efficiency. Email has transformed the speed at which transactions can take place and individuals receive the product or service they’ve purchased.

Consequently, the importance of email communication and the vast amounts of sensitive data it encompasses, makes it a contrast target – or “attack vector” for cybercriminals. Hackers and other malicious actors know that if they can infiltrate an organization’s email system, they have the potential to steal vast amounts of private or proprietary data. Just as alarmingly, they may simply use an insecure email platform as a backdoor into a company’s wider network, assuming greater control over their systems in an effort to maximize their financial gain or inflict maximum damage to an organization.

For healthcare companies with ambitious patient engagement goals, sharing protected health information (PHI) with a reliable third-party email provider is mandatory. Unfortunately, this comes with a litany of risks, which include:

Data Breaches: weak security features in third-party email providers can expose PHI.
Misconfigured Permissions: misconfigurations and a lack of oversight control can result in personnel at third parties having excessive access to PHI.
HIPAA Non-Compliance – if the integration does not support encryption, audit logs and other features mandated by HIPAA, you may drift into non-compliant territory.
Financial Implications: violating HIPAA regulations can result in financial penalties, including fines and compensation to affected parties.
Reputational Damage: companies that fall victim to cyber attacks, especially through negligence, become cautionary tales and case studies for cybersecurity solution vendors. Data exposure that comes from an insecure email platform integration can have disastrous effects on your company’s reputation.

Therefore, mitigating the risks of integrating a third-party email platform into your IT infrastructure, platforms and systems is crucial. This includes customer data platforms (CDP), electronic health record systems (EHR) and revenue cycle management platforms (RCM). Let’s move on to specific strategies on how to do so and, subsequently, better safeguard your organization’s PHI.

How To Mitigate Email Integration Risk

Now that you have a better understanding of the potential risks that come with integrating an insecure third-party email solution into your IT ecosystem, let’s look at risk prevention. Fortunately, several strategies will significantly lower the risk of malicious actors getting their hands on the sensitive patient data under your care. Let’s take a look:

Verify A Third-Party Vendor’s Security Practices

Before sharing PHI with a vendor, ensure they have a strong cybersecurity posture. This makes sure they have measures such as encryption, access control (or identity access management (IAM), and continuous monitoring solutions in place, in addition to conducting regular risk assessments.

Similarly, it’s crucial to research an email provider’s reputation, including how long they’ve been in operation, the companies they count among their clients, and their overall standing within the industry.

Business Associate Agreements (BAAs)

A business associate agreement (BAA) is a legal document that’s required for HIPAA compliance, when sharing PHI with third-party vendors, such as email services. It ensures that both you and the vendor formally agree to comply with HIPAA regulations and your respective responsibilities in protecting patient data.

Without a BAA, the above point about verifying a vendor’s security practices is moot. If they’re not willing to sign a BAA, their security stance is irrelevant, as your organization would have violated HIPAA regulations by not signing a BAA. More to the point, a HIPAA compliant email vendor will be eager to highlight their willingness to sign a BAA, as it advertises their ability to safeguard PHI and aid companies in achieving compliance.

Encrypting PHI

Encryption needs to be a major consideration when it comes to integrating a third-party email services provider. Adequate encryption measures ensure that sensitive data is protected even in the event of its exfiltration or interception. Sure, the hackers now have hold of the PHI, but with proper encryption policies and controls, it will be unreadable, preserving the privacy of the individuals affected by the data leak.

With this in mind, encryption measures that mitigate third-party email integrations include automated encryption, which ensures PHI is always encrypted without the need for manual configuration, and flexible encryption, which matches the encryption level with the security standards of your recipients.

Threat Intelligence

Unfortunately, cybersecurity never stands still. With the ever-evolving nature of cyber threats, healthcare organizations must keep up with the latest dangers to patient data. This means creating a process for discovering, and acting upon, the latest threat intelligence.

This could entail signing up for a threat intelligence service, or retaining the periodic services of an external threat intelligence expert.

Developing An Incident Response Plan For Vendor-Related Breaches

The alarming reality of securing PHI is that, even with robust safeguards in place, such as continuous monitoring, a process for acquiring the latest threat intelligence, and generally following the advice outlined in this post, data breaches are still a stark reality. Cyber criminals will always target healthcare organizations, due to the value and sensitivity of their data and systems. Worse, even as security measures grow more effective, the tools that malicious actors have at their disposal become more sophisticated. It’s an arms race, and one that’s only been exacerbated by the introduction of AI, with both security professionals and cyber criminals honing their use of it for their respective purposes.

Taking all this into consideration, having a comprehensive incident response plan in place ensures your organization responds quickly and effectively to cyber threats, or even suspicious activity. Your incident response plan should:

Detail what employees should do if they suspect malicious activity.
Outline steps for investigation and containment.
When and how to notify affected parties.
Processes for disaster recovery and retaining operational continuity.

While it’s vital to develop a general incident response plan, having a specific set of protocols for security breaches caused by third-party vendors is especially prudent.

Choose a HIPAA-Compliant Email Provider

An efficient and convenient way of mitigating the risks of third-party email integrations is to deploy a HIPAA compliant email delivery platform for communicating with patients and customers.

Being well-versed with the safety requirements of healthcare organizations, HIPAA compliant email software features all the security required to safeguard PHI. In deploying a HIPAA compliant email provider, you also implement several of the strategies outlined above, such as encryption and signing a BAA (as a HIPAA compliant will offer a BAA). Accounting for this, taking the time to select the right HIPAA compliant email provider for your organization’s needs and goals should be a key part of your overall cyber threat defense strategy.

Train Staff on Secure Email Communication Practices

Your staff is a considerable part of securing third-party email communications, so they must know the best practices for email security and safeguarding PHI. Comprehensive cyber threat awareness training ensures your personnel understand the risks of HIPAA non-compliance and follow the procedures you’ve set in place. Furthermore, the more responsibility an employee has in regards to PHI, the more comprehensive and regular their training needs to be.

Additionally, training, or “drilling”, if you will, on their roles in the incident response process increases its efficacy considerably and optimizes your response to attempts at unauthorized access to data.

How LuxSci Mitigates the Risks of Third-Party Integrations

At LuxSci, we specialize in providing secure, HIPAA compliant solutions that enable healthcare organizations to execute effective email communications and marketing campaigns.

With more than 20 years of experience, and helping close to 2000 healthcare organizations with HIPAA compliant email services, LuxSci has developed powerful, proven tools that sidestep the vulnerabilities often associated with third-party email integration. To learn more about how LuxSci can help your organization address the risks of third-party email integration, contact us today.

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.