Making sure that you maintain HIPAA compliance with all your communication and patient information is very important. It’s the reason why healthcare providers must keep protected health info secure. While emails can be a common way to share information, they are also prone to data breaches.

According to AAG IT, around 16.5 out of 100 emails get leaked on average. That means you have to protect sensitive information. It’s especially important in the case of business associates, but also healthcare organizations in general. Understanding the HIPAA compliant email format is extremely helpful. But how can you create such an email? Here’s what you need to do!

What are the important aspects to consider when you create a HIPAA compliant email?

Security rules established by HIPAA clearly suggest that you need to safeguard all email-based information. However, there are a few important guidelines that you must take into account and focus on, as you will notice below.

• If your organization works with printed emails, you need to establish a secure procedure that helps you dispose of them. Destroying or shredding all those emails is of the utmost priority. It’s the ideal way to prevent unauthorized access, and it will help make the process of securing emails a lot easier.
• Access to these emails should only be granted to authorized personnel. You might focus on health insurance portability, but at the same time you also want to secure messages. That’s why authorized individuals should be the ones to access passwords and which cover any access controls. Speaking of passwords, these need to be changed often, stored in a secure place and as complex as they can be.
• In case any info needs to be disclosed, only the minimum necessary info should be disclosed in the first place. That means you don’t want to share more than what’s necessary, in order to stick with the requirements. It will also make it easier to protect patient or even doctor data.
• End-to-end encryption should be implemented. That way, all the sensitive information will be compliant with the HIPAA requirements. And it’s also important to use a HIPAA-compliant email service as well.

It’s very important to take these HIPAA compliant email Reddit guidelines into account. It becomes much easier to comply with the guidelines, while also protecting the covered entity. Using an email account that’s just for work purposes is just as important. Otherwise, you might end up sharing wrongful, personal information by mistake. You should read and follow the NIST SP 800-45 Version 2 guidelines when it comes to electronic mail security.

What are the most common HIPAA email violations?

When you create a HIPAA compliant email, it’s essential to know what kind of violations can arise. The problem in most cases is that whenever you create such an email, it becomes very difficult to know what parts can violate HIPAA regulations. Thankfully, with help from this list, healthcare organizations can send secure messages, while understanding HIPAA requirements and what is considered a violation.

• Sending unencrypted emails will breach the HIPAA guidelines. That’s because these emails can be intercepted by hackers. Vital, sensitive data can end up in the wrong hands. Hackers can use this information to try and ask for a ransom, among many others. That’s why it’s crucial to encrypt emails before sensing them.
• Adding too many details and unrequested information is also not a good idea. The thing you have to keep in mind is that you should always share only info that’s necessary, not more than that. If you do, you might end up sending sensitive information. While you can send a HIPAA compliant email free, if you add too many details, that becomes an issue.
• Of course, sending info to the wrong recipient is a huge violation and an issue that you want to avoid. Sometimes, when you use HIPAA compliant email marketing platforms, it’s possible to select the wrong email. Sending that sensitive info to a random person will bring HIPAA issues, and ideally, it’s the type of thing that you want to avoid as much as you can.

What can you do in case you are dealing with a HIPAA violation?

There are situations when HIPAA violations can appear, and sometimes that it happens without even wanting to do so. What you should focus on in a situation like this? You can follow a few important steps to ensure that you still maintain the HIPAA compliance.

1. The first thing you want to do is to report any incident. You should report to the Department of Health and Human Services, but also to the affected individuals. If the situation is very severe, sometimes media reports are required too. Healthcare organizations also need to ensure that any affected parties are notified as quickly as possible.
2. Aside from reporting the incident, it’s imperative to investigate the situation. You want to see how the email was leaked, what information was shared and so on.
3. Once you have that information, you need to proceed towards taking adequate, corrective action. That helps because you will make it easier to avoid any breaches in the near future.
4. If necessary, you can also update any procedures and policies. It will help ensure that any future breaches are not possible.

Is it necessary to sign a BAA with the email provider?

Yes, signing a BAA with the email service provider is mandatory. The reason for that is the provider has persistent access to the ePHI. That’s possible even if the email is encrypted. You want to talk with the email provider and see if they agree to signing a BAA. If you’re using a free service, you might be forced to subscribe for a business email. That way, the provider will be more willing to sign a BAA.

Do you need patient consent to send PHI via email?

When you think about using a HIPAA compliant email marketing platform, you might also be thinking about the need for any type of consent. What you have to keep in mind is that you don’t need patient consent to send any patient info via email. However, it’s a good idea to gain the consent of your patients, if possible.

After all, patients should know how their data is handled and where it’s sent. If they agree to having it sent or shared even for internal purposes, that’s a lot better. As we said, it’s not mandatory to share that info, but if you can acquire their consent, that does help quite a lot.

Keep in mind that communicating via email is always going to have its fair share of challenges. That means any data leaks or any other issues can influence the relationships you have with your patients. It makes sense to just talk with the patient, ask for their consent when it comes to handling this type of information.

Best Practices for Email Communication That Follow HIPAA Rules

Use two factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is a very powerful security methods. Users need to offer 2 identification forms. Normally it uses a security token along with a person. These methods are great because you get to better safeguard your email, and the results you can get are very good. Moreover, you have a much-needed security layer, while also ensuring you retain the HIPAA compliance.

Perform regular risk assessments

The reason why regular risk assessments are important is because you can identify vulnerabilities. It’s a lot easier to track any issues and solve them right now rather than letting them get worse in the long run. How often should you perform these risk assessments? Ideally, you want to perform them once a year, but if you can do it even more often, that’s better.

Train your employees

All healthcare providers need to make sure that they train employees to follow those HIPAA guidelines. Most of the time, training employees can help circumvent a lot of data leaks. The training process has to focus on phishing scam prevention, how to create great passwords, but also how to use the email system and narrow down any potential security threats.

Work only with a HIPAA-compliant email service

Making sure that you are only using a HIPAA-compliant email service can also help a lot. These providers use authentication and encryption systems to help protect both emails and their attachments as well. Doing that is important, because otherwise you run the risks of having crucial patient data intercepted. That becomes a huge issue, and it will lead to significant problems for your business as a whole.

How can you choose a good HIPAA compliant email service?

There are a few important things that you need to take into account. You always want to ensure that your data is not logged by them, and if it is, then everything is fully encrypted. On top of that, you also want to know when and how is the data encrypted. Do they encrypt data in transit, or is this done by default?

As we said earlier, in some cases they might require you to upgrade to a paid service, if you are using a free one. Of course, you want to check for any certifications and other pieces of information that can be vital during this entire process. Communicating with the provider and knowing what to ask is super important, and it can help streamline the process.

Things to look for:

• Make sure that you are checking their pricing structure and how everything compares with other providers. When you choose a HIPAA compliant email format and service, it’s imperative to check the industry standards. And in the case of companies, you can easily compare them with other providers to see what fits your needs.
• Also, check if the company in question had any data breaches. Their reviews can be just as helpful too. You will see whether other healthcare providers using that service like it or not. At least it will give you a good idea of the expectations and other relevant info.
• You should also check what kind of encryption they are using too. In some cases, they might have very simple encryption, while others are using a very complex encryption system as well.
• Is the platform easy to use or not? Depending on the platform, sometimes you will have to go through multiple steps to complete a process. The same thing is valid when it comes to customer service. You may have only email based customer support, or you might receive live chat assistance.
• Some providers have HIPAA compliant services, others don’t. Having that kind of compliance can be a great selling point. But it still makes sense to check and assess everything to avoid any potential issues.

What kind of emails should be HIPAA compliant?

In general, all emails that are sent by healthcare providers and which include patient data need to be encrypted. So, it’s a good rule of thumb to try and encrypt everything, if you can do that. Manually sent emails, like the ones sent by your staff to business associates and other organizations are particularly important. They always have sensitive information, and you want to avoid sending the wrong stuff.

Provider to patient emails also need to be encrypted. The same thing is valid when it comes to provider to insurance carrier or provider to provider emails. All of these should be encrypted, in order to avoid any potential problems.

Conclusion

Making sure that an email is HIPAA compliant is extremely important for all healthcare providers. Sharing sensitive data is subject to the HIPAA rules, and you can easily end up with fines or issues if you break these rules. That’s why using end-to-end encryption, sharing only the necessary information and implementing two-factor authentication can be very helpful. It’s crucial to always follow the HIPAA compliant email format and all the necessary guidelines. You can never be too careful when it comes to sharing any sensitive data!