HIPAA Compliant Email
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandates that all healthcare organizations protect client or patient medical data. This means encrypting email and implementing strict policies for email use.
A HIPAA compliant email service helps you meet these requirements and protect your practice from potential penalties for a breach. Keep reading to learn more about this critical requirement.
End-to-end encryption
End-to-end encryption encrypts messages at the device level before sending them to another person. This protects data from being stolen or lost, and also prevents messaging services from spying on private correspondence between users.
When you send someone an email using end-to-end encryption, the message is scrambled and only the intended recipient can read it. This means that even if the person you’re communicating with has access to your device and knows your password, they can’t read your email without being told.
Unlike Transport Layer Security (TLS), which only encrypts emails while they’re in transit, end-to-end encryption encrypts them at rest on the server as well, so no one can read them even if they have access to the email service’s servers.
Egress offers HIPAA compliant email encryption that secures data at rest and in transit with AES-256 bit encryption. They also provide extra controls for sending sensitive data, including multi-factor authentication and automated DLP policies.
Strict policies
HIPAA compliant email requires strict policies to ensure the safety of patient data. This means implementing encryption methods, training staff, and archiving emails.
It also means using a business associate agreement (BAA) with each email service you use to send ePHI. This helps ensure that your business is HIPAA-compliant, and allows you to take legal action if a vendor does not comply.
Strict policies are also necessary because they help to prevent data breaches and protect your patients’ privacy. These policies must clearly define the use of email and what information is and is not allowed to be sent via email.
For example, it might include a footer that informs recipients that the content of the email is confidential and may be legally privileged. It also warns recipients that if they don’t follow the guidelines they can face legal consequences. This is a simple reminder to the recipient and helps to make sure they don’t do anything that could compromise the information in the email.
Training
Email is an essential part of modern business and it helps businesses stay in touch with their clients. It also automates many work processes and provides a convenient way for employees to communicate with one another.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets strict rules for the protection of Protected Health Information (PHI). Any organization that works with PHI must comply with these rules.
A major challenge that HIPAA compliance raises for healthcare organizations is email security. This requires that email systems encrypt both messages in transit and those stored on workstations or servers.
Choosing an email service that meets HIPAA requirements for data security is not an easy task. Some services, such as Google Drive, are willing to sign a business associate agreement (BAA) and can meet these requirements. However, other services are not.
Archiving
Archiving is a process that keeps emails indexed and searchable, making it easy to retrieve them in the event of a compliance audit. It also reduces the load on email servers and storage space and frees up IT resources.
The service providers that provide these solutions store the data on their servers and give designated administrators access to search it. The indexed content of these emails is encrypted, which reduces the risk of hackers getting into your server and deleting sensitive information.
Healthcare organizations should choose a service provider that complies with HIPAA rules and has a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in place. This way they can be confident that the archiving solution is HIPAA compliant.
