Email Compliance in Healthcare

Email marketing exerts a gravitational pull to keep your patients who only visit your practice sometimes. An email is a source of adding life to the list of patients who are out of your practice’s reach. 

Healthcare email marketing is a great tool to offer medical services, share the changes in your field, and show news and updates without skipping it on any day. Improve your position in the healthcare market and get more patient leads by benefiting yourself from email compliance. 

It always requires physicians to review their emails that don’t completely follow HIPAA privacy rules. This is effective in guiding the covered entities about the safe way of doing email marketing.

Healthcare Email Compliance Ensures Patient's Privacy at All Cost

A healthcare email is a well-written composure about your product or service displayed among the patients in your email list and encourages them to take the required action. Email compliance in healthcare wants you to use the PHI of patients for marketing purposes only. 

While considering the following things, you can safely prevent any compliance issues in your email marketing campaigns:

  • Your newsletters are easy to subscribe to and unsubscribe.
  • Add clear information segments in them.
  • Add the correct mailing address where you can receive patient mail.
  • Your email headline must be concise and crisp
  • The subject line shall relate to the email content.
  • Your email shall depict an advertisement if it contains your product or service.

What is Navigating HIPAA Compliance in Healthcare Email Marketing?

Protected health information (PHI) is any set of patient data that is identifiable about their health status, the optimum amount of care, and insurance reimbursement. When crafting email newsletters, it’s essential to understand what PHI is and how to maintain email compliance in healthcare.

Certain piece of information that is regarded as PHI include:

  • Patient names
  • Medical record numbers
  • Dates of service
  • Diagnosis or treatment information

To stay HIPAA compliant when sending healthcare email marketing, follow these guidelines:

Careful Use of PHI:

Use PHI carefully in your marketing materials, just disclosing what is required to support your claim. A good example is to refrain from mentioning specific patient names or medical record numbers in an email newsletter introducing a new patient group. Use more general phrasing to protect privacy and maintain email compliance in healthcare. 

Second, during appointments, inform patients about your email marketing campaigns and request their permission to sign up for emails that hide their PHI. Highlight the advantages they can receive, such as health advice, rescheduled appointment notices, or details on new services to get their consent.

Prioritize the Consent of Patients:

Before sending promotional messages or newsletters containing PHI, get the patient’s consent. Implement an opt-in mechanism that lets patients select the preferred communication method and bring email compliance in healthcare updates. 

On your healthcare website, online forms that indicate the kind of content patients might be expecting. Be sure to incorporate checkboxes where patients can show their agreement for a particular communication type or subject.

Encrypted Information:

Utilize HIPAA-compliant email marketing to safeguard confidential information. Investigate all possibilities to ensure robust encryption and protect PHI from unauthorized access. This enables you to go beyond a typical interaction by using customized and dynamic content.

Maximize Healthcare Email Compliance

A provider can’t overview the email marketing practices for their healthcare practice while managing the in-house operations. Facilitate the automation features of email marketing to optimize your healthcare campaigns.

Additionally, it would be best to segment your target patient populations with applicable content, such as information on specific conditions or age-appropriate preventive care advice. 

Further, by examining open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, you may determine the degree of patient involvement brought on by your email advertising

Conclusion

To rule out the use of PHI in healthcare emails, it is essential to get the desired knowledge on HIPAA compliance. After observing day-to-day hospital activities, we conclude that your marketing arsenal shall only include something that follows your patient’s consent. 

You shall always make your patients feel safe and satisfied during their visit. It is easy to inform your patients about plans by practicing email compliance in healthcare. 

Your healthcare email strategy shall be made in such a way that it helps you understand what you should and should not send to patients.

Share: