HIPAA Compliant Marketing Capabilities

In a world where more marketing is being done online, it’s critical for your marketing agency to be HIPAA compliant. Keeping our clients aware of how sensitive data is handled may seem unnecessary, but clients often do not realize just how much their data is considered protected health information.

HIPAA’s biggest concerns revolve around protecting against the dissemination of incredibly sensitive information, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII). But it also ensures policies are put in place in the organization to minimize areas where a breach can occur such as through emails or data storage. Your marketing agency will most likely need access to some PHI or PII to effectively work with you.

The following are examples of areas in which a marketing agency will likely require access to Protected Health Information.

Whether it’s in a blog/video, social media post, or in any kind of ad campaign, patient testimonials can be a powerful tool shedding light on your services and what they can do for potential customers.

However, to create that sort of content, HIPAA compliance is a must. Revealing anecdotes about one of your patients can potentially expose their Protected Health Information.

Many healthcare websites must collect sensitive information, so they must be heavily protected to ensure HIPAA compliance. If a marketing agency requires access to your website, they must also be HIPAA compliant to ensure data access is safeguarded to only authorized users.

If you plan to use any sort of email marketing, you’re likely going to provide patient emails to your marketing agency. Emails are considered electronic Protected Health Information (PHI) making HIPAA compliance vital in email marketing as well.

Many companies encourage patients who have had a positive experience with them to leave a review online. In the case of healthcare companies, putting this task in the hands of a marketing agency means that the agency must be HIPAA compliant, as phone numbers and emails are considered Protected Health Information (PHI).

At Kessler Creative, one of our primary concerns in working with our clients is to ensure the protection of their sensitive data. We follow all national guidelines for the secure maintenance, transmission, and handling of electronic private health information in all our marketing services.

Whether your data is HIPAA sensitive or not, we transfer all marketing mail lists and data files through Citrix ShareFile, an encrypted file-sharing platform. This process is quick and simple:

1. An access link to your personalized Citrix ShareFile will be emailed to you by an account executive
2. You can create an account and log in
3. You’ll drag and drop your file into the folder or browse your file locations to find the file you're looking to transfer
4. Once you’ve uploaded your file, you can log out

Ensuring HIPAA compliance in your marketing is a serious matter, but it doesn’t have to be overly difficult or complicated. At Kessler Creative, we strive to make it as simple and easy as possible for our clients.