What Are HIPAA Compliant Email Solutions?

HIPAA Compliant Email Software
Erik Kangas
April 6, 2025

HIPAA compliant email solutions include a range of technologies, services, and processes that enable healthcare organizations to communicate electronically while protecting protected health information (PHI) according to HIPAA regulations. The best HIPAA compliant email software solutions include encrypted email platforms, secure messaging systems, email gateways, and managed services that provide the administrative, physical, and technical safeguards required for PHI transmission. Healthcare communication needs vary widely across different organization types and sizes. Small practices require different capabilities than large hospital systems, yet all must meet the same regulatory standards for protecting patient privacy and maintaining secure communications.

Types of Email Security Solutions Available

Gateway solutions filter and encrypt emails automatically as they pass through organizational email infrastructure. These systems work with existing email platforms like Microsoft Exchange or Google Workspace to add HIPAA compliance capabilities without requiring users to change their communication habits. Hosted email platforms provide complete email infrastructure designed specifically for healthcare compliance. These cloud-based solutions handle all technical requirements while offering user interfaces similar to consumer email services, making adoption easier for healthcare staff. Hybrid approaches combine on-premises email servers with cloud-based security services. Organizations maintain control over their email data while leveraging specialized compliance expertise from third-party providers to ensure proper PHI protection.

Deployment Models for Different Healthcare Settings

Small medical practices often benefit from fully managed email solutions that require minimal internal IT support. These turnkey systems include setup, training, and ongoing maintenance while providing fixed monthly costs that help practices budget for compliance expenses. Large healthcare systems typically need enterprise solutions that integrate with existing IT infrastructure and support thousands of users. These deployments require careful planning for user migration, system integration, and staff training across multiple departments and facilities. Multi-location organizations face unique challenges coordinating email security across different sites. The top HIPAA compliant email solutions provide centralized management capabilities while accommodating local operational requirements and varying technical infrastructures.

Choosing Between Cloud and On-Premises Options

Cloud-based email solutions offer rapid deployment and reduced internal IT requirements but require careful evaluation of vendor security practices and data location policies. Healthcare organizations must ensure cloud providers offer appropriate business associate agreements and maintain adequate security controls. On-premises solutions provide direct control over email infrastructure and data storage but require significant internal expertise for implementation and maintenance. Organizations choosing this approach must invest in security training, hardware maintenance, and software updates to maintain HIPAA compliance. Cost considerations extend beyond initial implementation expenses to include ongoing maintenance, security updates, and compliance monitoring activities. Cloud solutions offer predictable monthly expenses while on-premises deployments involve variable costs for hardware replacement and staff training.

Evaluating Vendor Capabilities and Track Records

Security certifications provide objective evidence of vendor compliance capabilities and commitment to protecting healthcare data. Organizations should look for certifications like SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST, or ISO 27001 that demonstrate comprehensive security management practices. Client references from similar healthcare organizations help evaluate how well solutions perform in real-world environments. Vendors should provide case studies and references that demonstrate successful HIPAA compliance implementations and ongoing customer satisfaction. Breach history and incident response capabilities reveal how vendors handle security challenges and protect client data. Healthcare organizations should investigate any past security incidents and evaluate vendor transparency and response procedures.

Implementation Planning and Change Management

User training programs must address both technical aspects of new email systems and HIPAA compliance requirements. Healthcare staff need to understand how to use new tools while maintaining proper PHI handling procedures throughout their daily communications. Data migration strategies ensure that existing email archives and contacts transfer securely to new HIPAA compliant email solutions. Organizations must plan for potential downtime and establish backup communication methods during transition periods. Policy updates help align organizational procedures with new email solution capabilities. Entities should review and revise their HIPAA policies to reflect new technical safeguards and user responsibilities for PHI protection.

Measuring Success and Return on Investment

Compliance metrics help organizations track their success in meeting HIPAA requirements and reducing violation risks. Key indicators include user adoption rates, security incident frequency, and audit finding trends that demonstrate improved PHI protection. Operational efficiency improvements often result from implementing modern HIPAA compliant email solutions. Healthcare organizations may experience reduced IT support requirements, faster communication workflows, and improved care coordination capabilities. Risk reduction benefits include lower potential for HIPAA violations, reduced liability exposure, and improved patient trust in organizational privacy practices. These intangible benefits can be impactful but may be difficult to quantify in traditional financial terms.

Future-Proofing Email Security Investments

Technology evolution requires email solutions that can adapt to changing security threats and regulatory requirements. Healthcare organizations should select vendors with strong research and development capabilities and track records of staying current with emerging threats. Scalability considerations ensure that HIPAA compliant email solutions can grow with healthcare organizations and accommodate changing communication needs. Solutions should support increasing user counts, message volumes, and integration requirements without requiring complete replacement. Regulatory changes may affect email compliance requirements over time.

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:

Enter your email to download now!

We respect your privacy. No spam, ever.

How Automated Workflows Boost Engagement for Healthcare Marketing Campaigns

August 13, 2025
Pete Wermter

Due to the fact that it’s simple, instantaneous, cost-effective, and nearly universally adopted, email is an essential part of all healthcare marketing engagement strategies. However, consistent, personalized email engagement – particularly at scale – can be challenging.

Fortunately, Automated Workflows offer a solution, allowing healthcare companies to deliver the right messages to the appropriate individuals at the right time, based on their individual engagement with emails..

In this post, we’ll explore the concept of Automated Workflows, the considerable benefits they offer healthcare companies, and the variety of ways they can be used to increase engagement and result in greater satisfaction and better healthcare outcomes for your patients and customers.

What Are Automated Workflows?

An Automated Workflow is a sequence of actions, known as’ Steps’ in LuxSci Secure Marketing, that a Contact (i.e., a patient or customer) moves through over time, based on a series of pre-defined rules or triggers.

Each Step is programmed to automatically perform a specific function, such as sending an email or updating a Contact, when certain conditions are in place. These conditions could include:

A Contact opening a message.
A Contact clicking through on a link.
A specified amount of time having elapsed..
A data update via an API call

By evaluating conditions to initiate the appropriate Step, Automated Workflows facilitate more timely, consistent, and personalized communication with Contacts (patients and customers ). As a result, healthcare companies can effectively harness Automated Workflows to develop dynamic, personalized email engagement journeys that adapt according to your patients and customers’ needs and prior interactions.

What Are the Benefits of Automated Workflows?

Let’s look at the various advantages that Luxsci Automated Workflows offer.

Reduced Administrative Workload

Arguably, the most significant benefit of Automated Workflows is the extent to which they lower the administrative burden of email engagement campaigns for healthcare organizations.

First and foremost, Automated Workflows eliminate the need for an employee to manually send your Contacts messages. As well as the manual effort, it removes a great deal of thought from the process – as someone isn’t required to remember to send an email.

By the same token, this reduces the scope for human error, preventing the possibility of an employee neglecting to send an important message, sending it to the wrong person, or worse, accidentally exposing patient data, i.e., electronic protected health information (ePHI).

The effort that Automated Workflows reduce is typically repetitive work that staff are glad to be free of, giving them additional time to focus on tasks that provide greater value and better contribute to better patient care and/or the customer experience.

Enhanced Scalability

The time saved by employing Automated Workflows increases with the size of your Contact List and the scale of your engagement campaigns. In fact, enterprise-scale campaigns, with volumes of hundreds of thousands to millions of emails, are only feasible through the use of automation.

Similarly, Automated Workflows enable healthcare organizations to run differing, personalized email campaigns aimed at unique patient or customer segments. As well as automatically sending each message at the appropriate time, they provide tracking capabilities to determine the outcome of each message.

Increased Consistency in Communication

Because Automated Workflows remediate the risk of emails going unsent, they facilitate more timely and consistent communications with patients and customers. This makes healthcare providers, payers, and suppliers appear more reliable and consistent, building trust and greater levels of satisfaction from Contacts. More importantly, recipients are better able to track what’s happening with their healthcare and assume a more proactive role overall healthcare journey..

Finally, creating an Automated Workflow requires healthcare organizations to carefully consider how they communicate with different Contact segments. Namely, the likely journey, or communication path, different types of Contacts take, i.e., information they need to know at a particular stage in their healthcare journey, the optimal order in which information needs to be presented, etc. This allows healthcare companies to become more in-tune with their patients’ and customers’ needs, enabling them to craft more valuable email communications that boost engagement.

Personalized Healthcare Engagement

Perhaps the most significant benefit of Automated Workflows is that they enable adaptive, personalized engagement for healthcare marketing and communications campiagns. Instead of manually tracking where each Contact is in a given engagement sequence, or worse, merely having to guess, you know precisely where they are. Consequently, you’re acutely aware of their needs and the exact nature of the emails you need to send them next.

This, in turn, enables more effective Contact nurturing, i.e, strengthening your organization’s connection with each individual. When at its most effective, this may allow you to anticipate your Contacts’ needs, enabling you to send them communications, such screening or testing recommendations, educational materials, or product and service suggestions, that support their healthcare journey and enhance their quality of care.

Automated Workflow Use Cases

Automated Workflows are a powerful tool for increasing healthcare marketing and communications engagement because they can be applied to a wide range of use cases. Let’s take a look at some of the most common and impactful ways email automation can be used by healthcare companies.

New Product Announcements: keeping patients and customers in the loop on your company’s latest offerings, as well as improvements to existing products and services that are likely to be of interest, based on their data and past actions.
Personalized recommendations: suggesting products or services based on the recipient’s past purchases or engagement history.
Re-Engagement Campaigns: Automated Workflows can also be used to reconnect with Contacts with whom engagement has waned or was never completely established, sending them personalized messages to encourage specific actions or reignite interest.
New Member Onboarding: welcoming new patients or customers with a structured series of emails that introduces your services, provides technical assistance (where applicable), details subsequent steps, and explains how to get the most value from your products or services.
Appointment Reminers and Follow-Ups: sending reminders, care instructions, medication adherence advice, or details on how to book subsequent appointments, for instance, after a patient visit.
Patient Education Campaigns: taking patients through a structured curriculum on managing their medical condition or required lifestyle changes to improve their health..
Preventative Care Communications: proactively sending reminders for screenings, check-ups, vaccinations, etc., based on PHI such as a patient’s age, gender, health condition or lifestyle risk factors.

Milestone Communications: sending personalized messages to acknowledge birthdays, enrollment anniversaries, and other pertinent dates. These can also be combined with preventative care communications, to send recommendations or other advice, based on the contact’s age, for instance.
Feedback Collection: acquiring patient and customer feedback by sending follow-up surveys a set amount of time after a visit, procedure, purchase, etc.

How Automated Workflows Work in LuxSci Secure Marketing

To round off this post, let’s take a deeper look at how Automated Workflows work within LuxSci’s Secure Marketing solution. LuxSci’s Automated Workflows enhance your organization’s HIPAA compliant healthcare marketing and email campaigns by giving you complete control of:

When each email is sent
Which Contacts receive particular communications according to their behavior, needs, and other PHI-based attributes
Which engagement path or branch a Contact takes based on their email actions

Here’s a look at LuxSci’s Automated Workflows key capabilities in greater detail.

Smart Event-Based Branching and Conditions

You can branch Workflows to trigger targeted messaging based on a Contact’s attributes or certain engagement events, resulting in more relevant and effective healthcare journeys with more desirable outcomes.

User actions:
- Mailing list sign-ups
- Form completion
- Downloading a resource.
Time-based triggers:
- A set period after a visit or procedure
- A defined period of inactivity or lack of contact
- Milestones, e.g., birthdays, anniversaries.
Behavioral triggers:
- Email opens
- Clicking on links
- Visiting particular pages on a site or
- A lack of engagement with previous emails.
Transactional triggers:
- Purchasing a product or service
- Signing up for an event
- Order confirmations or shipping updates after a purchase.
API-triggered events
- Lab results or similar correspondence becoming available
- Changes to data in EHR systems, CDP platforms, or CRM systems..

Automated Segment Management

Automated Workflows can be used to dynamically add Contacts to segments based on demographics, past behavior, purchase history, and similar events. This enables more precise targeting and email personalization as they progress through specific Steps in each Workflow.

Navigation Across Steps

Automated Workflows are also capable of navigating Contacts across different Steps or completely different Workflows depending on engagement outcomes and updates to a Contact’s PHI. Better still, if a Step has already been visited, LuxSci Secure Marketing automatically prevents repetition and infinite loops.

Automate Your Healthcare Marketing and Engagement Efforts

LuxSci Secure Marketing is a HIPAA compliant healthcare marketing solution especially designed for the stringent security and regulatory requirements of the healthcare industry. Our solution enables healthcare organizations to confidently communicate with patients and customers at scale without risking compliance violations, driving increased engagement and boosting the ROI of their marketing campaigns in the process.

The latest version of LuxSci’s Secure Marketing solution with Automated Workflow functionality streamlines your company’s outreach efforts, saving considerable time, reducing human effort, and facilitating intelligent Contact management.

What’s more, LuxSci’s reporting capabilities empower you to carefully track the results of your healthcare engagement campaigns, gaining insights at every step, including:

Which Contacts received particular messages
Who engaged with email communication, and how
Precise points where drop-offs in engagement occur
The engagement achieved with each Step in the Workflow

To learn more about LuxSci’s Secure Marketing solution and how Automated Workflows boost engagement for your healthcare marketing and communications campaigns, contact us today.

How To Create a Healthcare Marketing Plan?

August 4, 2025
Erik Kangas

A healthcare marketing plan establishes strategic promotional activities, target audience identification, budget allocation, and compliance protocols to attract new patients while adhering to HIPAA privacy regulations and state advertising laws. Medical practices develop these documents to guide their promotional efforts across digital platforms, traditional media, and community outreach programs, ensuring all patient acquisition activities comply with healthcare privacy requirements and professional advertising standards.

Medical practices compete intensely for patient attention in saturated healthcare markets. Developing promotional strategies without proper planning leads to wasted resources, compliance violations, and missed opportunities to connect with patients who need specific medical services.

Target Audience in Healthcare Marketing Plan Development

Patient demographic research identifies age groups, geographic locations, insurance coverage types, and medical conditions that align with practice specialties and service offerings. Healthcare organizations analyze existing patient data to understand referral patterns, appointment scheduling preferences, and communication channel effectiveness for different population segments.

Competitor analysis reveals promotional strategies used by similar practices, pricing structures for comparable services, and market gaps that create opportunities for differentiation. This research helps practices position their services uniquely while avoiding oversaturated promotional approaches that fail to generate meaningful patient engagement.

Budget Allocation

Financial planning allocates resources across promotional channels based on expected return on investment, patient acquisition costs, and practice revenue goals. Digital advertising usually receives 40-60% of promotional budgets due to measurable results and targeted audience capabilities, while traditional media and community events receive smaller allocations.

Compliance costs including legal reviews, authorization management, and privacy training must be factored into promotional budgets to ensure all activities meet regulatory requirements. Practices that underestimate compliance expenses often discover their promotional activities violate privacy laws or professional advertising standards.

Digital Strategy to Drive Modern Patient Acquisition

Website optimization, search engine marketing, and social media presence are the core of contemporary promotional efforts outlined in every healthcare marketing plan. Practices invest in professional website design, patient portal integration, and mobile-responsive layouts to capture patients researching medical services online.

Content creation including blog posts, educational videos, and patient resources helps establish expertise while providing valuable information to potential patients. However, all content must avoid using patient information without authorization and cannot make unsubstantiated medical claims that violate advertising regulations.

Compliance Integration Protects Promotional Activities

HIPAA authorization procedures, business associate agreements with promotional vendors, and state advertising law compliance must be woven throughout every aspect of promotional planning. Healthcare marketing plan development includes legal review processes, privacy impact assessments, and staff training protocols to prevent violations.

Documentation requirements for promotional activities include consent forms, vendor contracts, and approval workflows that demonstrate compliance with healthcare privacy laws. Practices without proper documentation face significant penalties when regulatory investigations uncover promotional activities that violate patient privacy protections.

Community Outreach Builds Local Patient Relationships

Health fairs, educational seminars, and community partnerships create opportunities for practices to connect with potential patients through face-to-face interactions. These activities require planning to ensure patient privacy protection while maximizing promotional impact through relationship building and trust development.

Referral programs with other healthcare providers, local businesses, and community organizations can generate new patient leads when structured appropriately. Any financial incentives for referrals must comply with healthcare fraud and abuse laws to avoid legal complications.

Performance Measurement Guides Strategy Optimization

Patient acquisition metrics, appointment conversion rates, and promotional channel effectiveness data help practices evaluate their promotional success and adjust strategies accordingly. Healthcare marketing plan implementation includes tracking systems for website traffic, phone inquiries, and new patient appointments generated by different promotional activities.

Return on investment calculations compare promotional spending with revenue generated from new patients to determine which activities provide the best financial results. Practices use this data to reallocate budgets toward high-performing promotional channels while eliminating ineffective strategies.

Implementation Timeline

Monthly promotional calendars coordinate campaign launches, content publication schedules, and community event participation to maximize promotional impact while avoiding resource conflicts. Healthcare marketing plan execution requires detailed project management to ensure all activities launch on schedule and within budget constraints. Seasonal considerations including flu shot campaigns, wellness check promotions, and holiday health messaging opportunities require advance planning to capitalize on increased patient interest during specific time periods. Practices that plan these campaigns well in advance may achieve better results than those that react to opportunities without preparation.

What Does the HIPAA Marketing Rule Require?

August 1, 2025
Erik Kangas

The HIPAA marketing rule prohibits healthcare organizations from using protected health information for promotional communications without written patient authorization, defining promotional activities as communications that encourage patients to purchase products or services with financial benefit to the sender. Organizations can send treatment-related communications, appointment reminders, and health plan benefit descriptions without authorization, but any communication promoting third-party products, paid services, or revenue-generating activities requires explicit patient consent through properly executed authorization forms.

Healthcare providers regularly find themselves struggling with acceptable patient education and prohibited promotional activities. A simple newsletter about diabetes management becomes problematic when it includes advertisements for glucose monitors or pharmaceutical products that generate revenue for the practice.

The HIPAA Marketing Rule Authorization Framework

Patient authorization documents must contain sixteen specific elements including detailed descriptions of information to be disclosed, identification of recipients, expiration dates, and explanations of revocation rights. These forms cannot be combined with other consent documents and must use plain language that patients can easily understand. Healthcare organizations face penalties when authorization forms lack required elements or contain overly broad permission language.

Patients retain the right to revoke authorization at any time, forcing organizations to immediately cease all promotional activities involving that individual’s information. Organizations cannot condition treatment, payment, enrollment, or benefits eligibility on patients providing authorization for promotional purposes, creating clear separation between healthcare services and commercial activities.

Treatment Communications Bypass Marketing Restrictions

Healthcare organizations can discuss treatment alternatives, medication options, and care coordination services without obtaining separate authorization because these communications serve legitimate healthcare purposes rather than commercial interests. Appointment scheduling, test result notifications, and prescription refill reminders fall under treatment or healthcare operations exemptions from marketing regulations.

Face-to-face communications between providers and patients about treatment options is unrestricted, even when providers receive financial benefits from recommended treatments or services. Written materials distributed during these encounters may trigger authorization requirements if they promote specific products or services beyond the immediate treatment relationship.

Financial Incentive Distinctions Shape HIPAA Marketing Rule Compliance

Communications become subject to the HIPAA marketing rule when healthcare organizations receive financial remuneration from third parties for promoting their products or services. Pharmaceutical company payments for promoting medications, medical device manufacturer incentives, or referral fees from specialty services transform otherwise acceptable communications into restricted promotional activities.

Organizations must examine their financial relationships carefully to determine when communications cross from permissible healthcare operations into restricted promotional territory. Even nominal payments or gifts from third parties can trigger marketing authorization requirements for communications that mention or promote those parties’ products or services.

Business Associate Relationships Complicate Marketing Activities

Vendors creating promotional materials, managing patient outreach campaigns, or analyzing treatment data for commercial purposes need business associate agreements before accessing PHI. These relationships are difficult if the promotional vendors also provide healthcare services or when healthcare organizations share revenue from marketing activities with their business partners.

Organizations must negotiate appropriate contractual protections and ensure vendors understand their obligations under the HIPAA marketing rule before beginning any collaborative promotional activities. Liability for vendor violations remains with the covered entity, making careful partner selection and monitoring essential for maintaining compliance.

Digital Platforms & Modern Marketing Compliance Challenges

Social media advertising, email campaigns, and online retargeting involve sharing patient information with technology platforms that lack appropriate privacy protections. Healthcare organizations cannot upload patient contact lists, demographic details, or treatment information to advertising platforms without proper authorization and business associate agreements covering those platforms.

Website analytics, social media pixels, and advertising tracking technologies may inadvertently capture and transmit PHI to third-party platforms without appropriate protections. Organizations need controls to prevent accidental information sharing while still enabling effective digital marketing activities within compliance boundaries.

Enforcement Penalties Reflect Serious Violation Consequences

Recent Office for Civil Rights enforcement actions have resulted in multi-million dollar settlements for organizations that used patient information in marketing materials without authorization or shared PHI with advertising vendors without appropriate agreements. These cases highlight increasing federal scrutiny of healthcare promotional activities and willingness to impose substantial financial penalties.

Violations may stem from seemingly innocent activities like patient newsletters, social media posts, or website testimonials that inadvertently disclosed PHI without proper authorization. Organizations discover that good intentions cannot shield them from penalties when their marketing activities violate patient privacy protections under the HIPAA marketing rule.

Compliance Programs Minimize Violation Risks

Healthcare organizations benefit from establishing clear review processes for all promotional materials and patient communications before distribution. Designated privacy personnel can evaluate whether proposed communications require authorization, involve business associate relationships, or create other compliance risks under marketing regulations.

Staff training helps employees recognize the difference between permissible healthcare communications and restricted marketing activities. Education updates keep pace with new promotional channels, emerging technology platforms, and evolving interpretations of the rule’s requirements within changing healthcare and advertising landscapes.

Why Healthcare Insurers Should Send Explanation of Benefits Statements Via Email

July 30, 2025
Pete Wermter

Explanation of Benefits statements or EOBs are mission-critical communications for health insurers because they ensure transparency, help detect billing errors or fraud, and most importantly, keep patients informed about their benefits and related payments.

However, the most conventional method of sending out EoBs, traditional mail, has several drawbacks that can prevent important information about healthcare coverage from reaching the intended recipient. This can leave policyholders in the dark about their healthcare coverage, which can lead to confusion and dissatisfaction with their insurance provider when they receive an unexpected medical bill. This can also drive up inbound calls into your claims department or contact center.

Because Explanation of Benefits statements contain the protected health information (PHI) of policyholders, insurers are bound by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations to ensure their secure delivery. Consequently, the risks inherent to sending paper EoB statements in the mail not only have security implications but also potential consequences for non-compliance.

With all this in mind, this post discusses why healthcare insurers should send EoBs to their policyholders via secure email instead of traditional mail. We detail the various benefits of making the switch to electronic EoBs, which include enhanced security, better adherence to compliance regulations, and the opportunity to save millions of dollars per month.

Protecting Patient Privacy

The primary reason that insurance companies should shift to email EoBs as opposed to traditional mail is that it’s far more secure. Sending an EoB via email drastically decreases the risk of protected health information (PHI) getting into the wrong hands. When sent in paper form by mail, an EoB could be:

Lost, stolen or damaged in transit
Delivered to the wrong address
Not properly deposited in a letter or mailbox, then stolen
Intercepted within the intended address by another individual who lives at or has access to the residence.

As detailed later in this post, email also allows for various controls and processes, which mitigate the risks of unsuccessful message delivery.

Most importantly, secure email provides data encryption, which safeguards the sensitive patient data within EoBs during transmission and when stored by rendering it unreadable to malicious actors who might intercept it. Physical mail, in contrast, offers no such protection, as someone who intercepts a paper EoB form can simply open it and freely read its contents.

Finally, secure email delivery platforms feature identity verification and access controls that enable healthcare insurers to restrict access to PHI to authorized personnel, limiting its exposure. They also provide auditing capabilities to track access to patient data, and quickly identify the source of security breaches.

HIPAA Compliance Benefits

Because sending an Explanation of Benefits statement via email is more secure, and better protects any patient data contained within them, this also reduces the risk of HIPAA compliance violations.

First and foremost, HIPAA regulations mandate that communications containing PHI, such as EoBs, must securely reach the intended recipient. By eliminating the risk of physical interception or non-delivery, and the compliance violations from a resulting security breach, insurers can better adhere to HIPAA regulations using email for sending EOBs. On a similar note, the security features built into a HIPAA compliant email platform, such as encryption, access controls, and audit logs, help insurers to satisfy the requirements of HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules in their compliance efforts.

Another considerable benefit of using secure email to send policyholders their EoBs, or, in fact, any communication containing PHI, is that it’s far easier to implement breach notification protocols. Email delivery platforms provide real-time tracking, so companies can pinpoint email message failures quickly and act accordingly. Similarly, intrusion detection systems and other cybersecurity measures that support email systems can enable faster detection and containment of data breaches.

In stark contrast, physical mail is far more difficult to track – and even those limited capabilities are reserved for more expensive delivery options. Consequently, security breaches via mail could go unnoticed for days or even weeks. If you’re unaware of a data breach, or have not yet contained or mitigated it, you’re then unable to inform all affected parties, resulting in further HIPAA violations.

Increased Deliverability Rates

By greatly mitigating the security risks presented by physical mail, i.e., the various ways an EoB could fall into the wrong hands, sending an EoB by email increases your ability to get more EOBs into the hands of policyholders, more quickly. At the same time, policyholders can make faster decisions regarding their healthcare.

The ability to track secure email gives you greater control over EOB deliverability, as it allows organizations to determine the cause of delivery failure and can also make subsequent attempts. Additionally, the process of determining the reason for the message delivery failures can also reveal security issues; the same process, however, is very difficult to achieve with traditional mail.

Here’s how the typical protocol for resending a secured email goes beyond what you can do with managing traditional mail delivery:

Determine the cause of non-delivery: verify that the intended recipient information is correct and check for issues like a full email inbox or security misconfigurations.
Don’t automatically resend: to avoid exposing PHI to the wrong person, confirm the intended recipient’s email address through an alternative verified channel, e.g., phone call, secure SMS, etc.
Log the incident: document the delivery failure, steps taken to determine its cause, attempts, etc.
Reattempt message delivery: if the investigation deems it safe, attempt message redelivery with the corrected information.

In the event that subsequent delivery attempts fail, it’s best practice to contact the individual to arrange the most convenient and secure alternative to deliver their EoBs.

Cost Savings

Simply put, sending Explanation of Benefits statements via email instead of traditional mail saves health insurers money – potentially lots of it. Processing EOBs from start to finish can cost health insurers one to two dollars or more per EOB. That’s a lot. The biggest opportunity for cost reduction is tied to the money saved on printing and mailing paper EoB statements. Additionally, the cost of administering the delivery of EoB forms, ensuring their delivery, etc., is lowered when it’s done electronically. Not to mention, resending EoBs in the event of their non-delivery is much easier and cheaper via email.

In a broader sense, increasing the deliverability and the success rate of sending EoBs helps a larger number of policyholders better understand the details of their insurance coverage, i.e., how it works, which services and procedures it covers, etc. As a result of their policyholders being more informed, insurers won’t spend as much time explaining policy details and cost breakdowns to their members, allowing them to divert the otherwise required resources to other areas of the business.

Reduced Carbon Footprint

Finally, it’s difficult to highlight the benefits of sending EoBs to policyholders by email without recognizing the positive environmental impact, too. Email EoBs cut down on paper, for both the forms themselves and the envelopes they’re mailed in. Then there’s the matter of the electricity and ink involved in printing them, the emissions produced in their delivery, etc. Opting to send EoBs via email reduces all these factors, which enables healthcare organizations to lower their carbon footprint and, where applicable, meet their sustainability obligations or goals.

Deliver EoBs More Securely, Reliably, and at Lower Cost with LuxSci

LuxSci’s Secure High Volume Email Solution enables healthcare insurance companies to instantly send Explanation of Benefits statements to policyholders at a massive scale, extending into hundreds of thousands or millions per month.

Our HIPAA compliant email delivery platform features:

Dedicated IPs that isolate critical transactional messages, such as EoBs, from other email traffic, allowing LuxSci customers to reach deliverability rates of 98% or more.
Real-time tracking for determining the delivery status of EoBs, as well as troubleshooting unsuccessful delivery attempts.
Flexible encryption through LuxSci’s proprietary SecureLine Technology, which automatically adjusts encryption settings according to the recipient to better ensure the protection of sensitive data.

LuxSci Achieves Best-in-Class Performance for Email Security

June 26, 2024
LuxSci

We’re pleased to share our latest designations and recognition for being “best-in-class” when it comes to email security, including from SecurityScorecard, SSL Labs and the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards.

As you may know, our commitment to email security is unwavering, playing a central role in everything we do. Most of all, this commitment focuses on our customers – and ensuring PHI data is secure at all times. We do this via product innovation, best practices and staying ahead of the latest threats.

With that in mind, now’s a great time to highlight our company’s core values – which are anchored in security – to give you an idea of what it’s like to work with us. Together, they make up what we call the The LuxSci Way with a focus on the following:

Secure – We protect the security and privacy of our customers’ data and their systems by taking a security-first approach.
Responsible – We are focused on cybersecurity and ensure our software and systems are continually updated for the latest threats.
Smart – We proactively apply our knowledge and deep expertise in cybersecurity to provide efficient, responsive customer support.
Trust – We sustain partnerships with our customers, and we are committed to their long-term protection and success.

98/100 on SecurityScorecard

LuxSci recently scored 98/100 and received an A rating on SecurityScorecard, a leading cybersecurity ratings firm. SecurityScorecard has ranked more than 21,000 unique vendors in the healthcare space with an average score of 88 and a B rating, placing LuxSci at the top end of the rankings in our industry.

SecurityScorecard ratings offer easy-to-read A-F ratings across a range of risk factors, including network, endpoint and application security, DNS health, and IP reputation. In total, SecurityScorecard has rated more than 11 million organizations worldwide and supports thousands of organizations with its rating technology for self-monitoring, third-party risk management, board reporting, and cyber insurance underwriting.

A+ on SSL Labs TLS Support Check

In related news, LuxSci achieved an overall A+ rating for its latest Qualys SSL Labs TLS support check. SSL Labs performs a deep analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server on the public Internet to better understand how SSL is deployed, scoring vendors across key areas, including certificate, protocol support, key exchange and cipher strength.

SSL Labs is a non-commercial research effort, welcoming participation from any individual and organization interested in SSL.

LuxSci Receives Cybersecurity Excellence Award for Healthcare

Finally, LuxSci recently received a 2024 Cybersecurity Excellence Award for healthcare products. The annual awards recognize excellence, leadership, and innovation in cybersecurity across a range of categories and industries. LuxSci was recognized for its Secure Marketing product for HIPPA-compliant marketing, which features industry-leading email security.

Part of the LuxSci Secure Healthcare Engagement Suite of software, LuxSci Secure Marketing empowers healthcare providers, payers and suppliers to use protected health information (PHI) to create secure and personalized email campaigns that increase patient engagement and improve outcomes. The highly flexible LuxSci Secure Marketing solution can securely send millions of emails per month, featuring list management, automation, easy-to-use templates, detailed reporting & analytics, and API connectivity to easily integrate with data and applications.

If you’d like to learn more about LuxSci email security, and our HIPAA-compliant healthcare communications solutions for email, marketing, forms and text, reach out to us today and schedule a call with an expert.

What Is HIPAA Email Software?

June 18, 2025
Erik Kangas

HIPAA email software is specialized communication technology designed to protect protected health information during electronic transmission while enabling healthcare organizations to communicate securely with patients, providers, and business partners. This software includes encryption capabilities, access controls, audit logging, and other security features required for HIPAA compliance when sending emails containing sensitive medical information. Healthcare providers, payers, and suppliers use HIPAA email software to maintain regulatory compliance while conducting routine business communications, patient outreach, and care coordination activities. Understanding what HIPAA email software offers helps organizations select appropriate solutions for their communication needs while avoiding costly privacy violations.

Security Features Required in HIPAA Email Software

HIPAA email software must include encryption capabilities that protect messages and attachments during transmission and storage. End-to-end encryption ensures that only authorized recipients can access message content, while encryption at rest protects stored emails from unauthorized access. Authentication mechanisms verify user identities before granting access to email systems, preventing unauthorized individuals from sending or receiving sensitive communications. Access controls allow administrators to define who can send emails to specific recipients and which types of information can be included in different message categories. Role-based permissions ensure that staff members can only access email functions appropriate to their job responsibilities. Automatic session timeouts prevent unauthorized access when users leave workstations unattended, while password complexity requirements help protect user accounts from compromise.

Audit and Logging Capabilities

Comprehensive audit logging tracks all email activities within HIPAA email software, creating detailed records of who sent messages, when they were transmitted, and who accessed them. These logs include information about message recipients, attachment details, and any forwarding or reply activities. Audit trails help organizations demonstrate compliance during regulatory reviews and investigate potential security incidents or privacy violations. Log retention policies ensure that audit information remains available for required periods, while secure storage prevents unauthorized modification or deletion of audit records. Automated reporting features can alert administrators to unusual email patterns or potential security concerns. Regular review of audit logs helps identify training needs and process improvements for email security practices.

HIPAA Email Software Integration with Healthcare Systems

HIPAA email software integrates with electronic health record systems, practice management platforms, and other healthcare applications to streamline communication workflows. These integrations allow users to send secure emails directly from patient records or billing systems without switching between multiple applications. Automated triggers can generate secure email notifications for appointment reminders, lab results, or billing communications. Application programming interfaces enable custom integrations with specialized healthcare software used by different types of organizations. Single sign-on capabilities allow users to access email functions using their existing healthcare system credentials. Integration features help reduce workflow disruptions while maintaining security standards across all communication channels.

Patient Portal and External Communication Features

Many HIPAA email software solutions include patient portal functionality that allows secure two-way communication between healthcare organizations and their patients. Patients can log into secure portals to read messages, respond to communications, and download documents without requiring special software installations. Portal notifications alert patients when new messages arrive while maintaining privacy protections. External communication features enable secure messaging with business partners, referring physicians, and other healthcare organizations that may use different email systems. Secure message delivery ensures that communications reach intended recipients even when they use non-HIPAA compliant email systems. Delivery confirmation and read receipts provide verification that important messages were received and accessed by recipients.

Compliance Management and Administrative Controls

HIPAA email software provides administrative tools for managing user accounts, setting security policies, and monitoring compliance across the organization. Centralized administration allows IT teams to configure security settings, manage user permissions, and enforce organizational email policies from a single interface. Policy templates help organizations implement standard security configurations that meet HIPAA requirements. User training modules within the software help staff understand proper email security practices and organizational policies for handling protected health information. Compliance dashboards provide real-time visibility into email security metrics and potential policy violations. Automated policy enforcement prevents users from sending emails that violate organizational security standards or regulatory requirements.

Implementation and Deployment Considerations

Healthcare organizations implementing HIPAA email software need to consider data migration from existing email systems, staff training requirements, and integration with current technology infrastructure. Planning phases should include security risk assessments, workflow analysis, and stakeholder input to ensure the selected solution meets organizational needs. Pilot deployments allow organizations to test functionality and identify potential issues before full implementation. Change management processes help staff adapt to new email security procedures and software interfaces. Technical support during implementation ensures that integration challenges are resolved quickly and that security configurations meet organizational requirements. Post-deployment monitoring verifies that the HIPAA email software performs as expected and continues meeting compliance obligations over time

HIPAA-Compliant Email Marketing FAQs

October 24, 2024
LuxSci

Email is an essential channel for most healthcare marketers, but HIPAA compliance requirements can make it challenging to execute effective engagement campaigns without violating patient privacy.

HIPAA is a complicated set of regulations that while offering a lot of guidance, does not mandate the use of any specific technologies to protect patient privacy. This ambiguity causes a lot of confusion for marketers looking to integrate email into their healthcare engagement campaigns.

With this in mind, this article addresses some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about HIPAA-compliant email marketing and offers advice for securing patient data and future-proofing your marketing.

Frequently asked HIPAA compliant email marketing questions

Do Generic Newsletters Need To Be Protected?

What Is An Email API?

Does HIPAA Allow Healthcare Providers To Send Unencrypted Emails With PHI To Patients?

Can Patients Exercise Their Right Of Access By Receiving PHI via Unencrypted Email?

Is Microsoft 365 Sufficient For Marketing Emails?

What Are Common Email Marketing Use Cases For Healthcare?

How Do I Find a HIPPA-Compliant Email Marketing Vendor?

Do generic newsletters need to be protected?

Some marketers assume newsletters from a healthcare provider or supplier do not contain health information and, therefore, do not fall under HIPAA requirements. This assumption, however, is often incorrect, with many surprised to learn that protected health information (PHI) can be implied from seemingly innocuous information.

As a result, many generic email newsletters often indirectly contain PHI due to the very fact that they are sent to lists of current patients or customers. This is because email addresses count as individually identifiable data and when combined with the message therein, it’s pretty simple to infer that they are patients or customers.

Let’s say, for example, that you send a newsletter to the patients of a dialysis clinic. An eavesdropper could infer that the recipients receive dialysis. Consequently, as the email reveals information about an individual’s health treatment, it contains PHI and should be secured in compliance with HIPAA regulations.

For the fundamental reason that it can be difficult to determine what classifies as PHI, it’s safer to skip the ambiguity entirely and use a HIPAA-compliant email marketing solution to ensure security.

What is an email API?

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a collection of protocols, or rules, that enable different applications to communicate with each other. APIs are a crucial aspect of modern applications – as they spare developers the considerable effort of creating application features from scratch – they can just connect to the API of an existing application.

For example, how many websites have you used that utilize Google Maps? This is because they have connected their site to the Google Maps API – integrating it into their application and providing another feature for their users.

In the case of an email API, it is a way for applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, customer data platforms (CDP) and electronic health record (EHR) systems, to connect to email service providers. This then allows marketers to send emails through the application, using the ePHI (electronic protected health information) collected and stored within the application.

Additionally, marketers can view and further utilize campaign data through the powerful dashboards and analysis tools found in CRM systems and similar applications. Trigger-based transactional or marketing emails are ideal for sending with an email API, whereby 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 appointments, check ups or treatments.

As invaluable as email APIs are, however, especially for streamlining and automation communication workflows, they are no substitute for a comprehensive email marketing platform. Email APIs do not include the contact management systems standard in most email marketing platforms, as all the data resides within the application they connect to. Additionally, email API tools do not typically include drag-and-drop editor tools and other design features that enable you to make your emails stand out and boost patient engagement.

Does HIPAA allow healthcare providers and companies to send unencrypted emails with PHI to patients?

Encryption is an addressable standard, i.e., it must be implemented by the organization unless a risk analysis concludes that implementation is not reasonable and appropriate, under the HIPAA Security Rule. This does not mean it is optional. The HIPAA Security 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.” in response to this, 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:

Keeping track of waivers over time and recording status changes and updates is challenging – and increases your administrative overhead.
Signed waivers do not insulate you from the consequences of a HIPAA breach.
Using waivers to send unencrypted emails doesn’t absolve you of your other HIPAA obligations, such as data retention and disposal. Subsequently, using a HIPAA-compliant email solution is more manageable and eliminates ambiguity.

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

Yes, but they must be fully informed of the risks and sign waivers acknowledging them; the caveats detailed in the above answer apply. Consequently, it’s always best to use an encryption tool to protect patient data.

Is Microsoft 365 with encryption sufficient for sending marketing emails?

Microsoft 365 can be configured with Office Message Encryption (OME) to comply with HIPAA. However, it is not well-suited for sending 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. As a result, the portal adds friction to the marketing process that prevents optimal engagement and constrains ROI.

Marketing messages containing light-PHI, i.e. low-risk data, are best sent using Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption. TLS-encrypted messages arrive in the recipient’s inbox just like a regular email and do not require them to complete an additional step.

Additionally, Microsoft 365 is not configured to send high volumes of email. If you plan on executing large scale marketing campaigns, you could unintentionally disrupt regular business communications by sending all the messages through the same infrastructure. Instead, you should separate your business and marketing email delivery activities to protect your IP reputation, i.e., the trustworthiness of your IP addresses and how likely it is your emails end up in a spam folder, and achieve your desired sending throughput.

What are the common email marketing use cases for healthcare?

Email marketing in healthcare is not restricted to boring general practice newsletters and other communications that fail to engage patients. When you successfully harness tools that enable you to use ePHI to better target and personalize your healthcare engagement campaigns – the sky is the limit. With consumer preferences shifting toward digital communications, marketers who know how to best utilize HIPAA-compliant email marketing – and tactics like segmentation and personalization – will prove more effective at reaching patients.

Examples of ways that healthcare marketers can use email include:

Lead generation campaigns
Promotions
Verifications
Order confirmations
Notifications
Upsell & cross-sell
Collecting data on the patient experience

How do I find a HIPAA-compliant email vendor?

Using popular email marketing platforms, such as Mailchimp, is not recommended. Many of these platforms were designed for businesses, but are simply 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.

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

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.

Conclusion

Admittedly, HIPAA can be difficult to understand – but choosing the right tools and adequately vetting your vendors makes it far easier to successfully execute HIPAA-compliant email marketing campaigns.

As the most experienced HIPAA-compliant email provider, LuxSci specializes in providing secure and scalable communications for companies aiming to send hundreds of thousands – or millions – of emails. In light of this, we place security, compliance and personalization considerations front and center when building our solutions.

Interested in discovering how LuxSci’s secure healthcare communications solutions can transform your healthcare marketing and engagement efforts?

What Are the 4 Ps of Healthcare Marketing

October 4, 2024
Erik Kangas

Successful healthcare marketing combines four key elements – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion – to effectively reach patients, customers and healthcare partners. These marketing principles guide product and service development, pricing, delivery methods, campaign strategies and promotional activities. Marketing teams should apply these concepts, while meeting healthcare regulations and patient privacy standards.

Product Development in Healthcare

Medical services, products and treatments are core offerings in healthcare marketing. Organizations develop product and service lines based on community health needs and market opportunities. Product planning includes new medical technologies, treatment protocols, and patient care programs. Marketing teams should work with clinical departments to define features and benefits. Patient needs and competitor offerings must be researched to identify product and service gaps in your own offerings. Product development also should consider insurance coverage requirements and reimbursement rates. Teams should then create product and service descriptions and marketing content and materials that accurately represent your capabilities and benefits.

Healthcare Pricing Strategies

Price planning in healthcare marketing balances product and service costs, market rates, and patient accessibility. Organizations should analyze insurance reimbursement levels, operating expenses, and competitive pricing. Marketing teams should also develop pricing communications that help patients understand their financial responsibilities, working with billing departments to create clear cost explanations and payment options. Effective pricing strategies include considerations for different insurance plans and self-pay patients. Teams must regularly monitor market pricing trends and adjust rates based on product and service costs and competition.

Healthcare Service Delivery and Access Points

Healthcare organizations should plan new products, services and delivery methods to maximize patient access. Marketing teams analyze geographic coverage, facility capabilities, and effective communications practices to ensure they are connecting with patients at the right time, over the right channel. They promote various access points including medical offices, outpatient centers, and telehealth options. Location planning considers population density, competition, and healthcare demand patterns. Evaluations including facility requirements for different services and patient volumes are necessary here. Marketing materials and content should display convenient access points and service availability, and/or easy access to new products. Organizations should track utilization rates across different channels and locations to optimize engagement and deliver the best outcomes.

Marketing Communications and Promotion

Healthcare marketing teams develop promotional strategies to reach patients and customers, as well as healthcare providers, payers and suppliers. They should create educational content about medical services and treatment benefits, new products, preventative care, as well as promotional plans that include advertising schedules, content distribution, and community outreach communications. The teams select marketing channels based on target audience preferences and message requirements, such as email or social media platforms. A main team goal should be to maintain consistent branding across all marketing materials and platforms, and to follow healthcare advertising guidelines and regulatory requirements for all communications, especially HIPAA. Organizations can measure campaign effectiveness through patient response rates, conversions, service utilization and new product sales.

Integration of Marketing Elements

Marketing plans should combine all four elements to create effective healthcare programs. Teams should ensure that product offerings are aligned with pricing strategies, patient needs and channel preferences. From there, promotional messages and campaigns should be developed to accurately represent services and products. Marketing activities should be coordinated between different departments to ensure consistent experiences, branding and outcomes. Organizations can track how changes in one area affect other marketing elements. Teams should adjust their marketing and channel mix based on performance data and market changes. Integration planning helps maintain efficient marketing operations and resource use.

Measurement and Performance Review

Healthcare organizations should establish metrics to evaluate their marketing program results at all times. Performance is tracked across all four marketing elements through regular reporting, in addition to analysis of patient volume, engagement, revenue generation, and satisfaction scores. Marketing departments should measure return on investment for different activities and campaigns to determine what programs and working and those that need to be updated or stopped. Performance reviews help teams identify successful strategies and improvement areas. Organizations should use this data to refine their marketing approaches and resource allocation as conditions change. Regular assessments ensure marketing programs meet organizational goals, as well as patient and customer needs.