HIPPA Compliant Healthcare Email Marketing Strategies
Getting the Right Provider that Follows the Rules So You Can Email Your Patients or Clients
Email should be the #1 digital marketing tool for your healthcare practice.
Its preferred over other channels for marketing offers
Segmentation allows for successful, targeted marketing campaigns
You can personalize them to your tone and business goals
When done right, they have a MINIMUM ROI of $35:$1
It performs better, is preferred by your target audience, and is more in your control than ads, social media chanels, SEO, or any other form of healthcare marketing. It can be specialized to any marketing need; you can use it in conjunction with content marketing or pair offers with social proof and CTAs to create a sense of urgency. And you can segment your audience to maximize results.
Without a doubt, email is the best "bang for your buck" when it comes to digital marketing.
But when it comes to healthcare, email marketing is not as easy as just setting up a Hubspot account and sending educational content and new service offers every week. And thats for two reasons:
Because THAT would be a major violation of HIPPA.
Because healthcare is a unique industry where email plays a unique role.
While HIPPA does complicate email marketing, it does not preclude healthcare businesses from engaging in email marketing. As I stated in the blog post on customer testimonials (read here), HIPPA is all about PROTECTING patient information and getting PERMISSIONS.
This post talks about the extra hoops you will have to jump through as a healthcare provider in order to effectively email your patients, subscriber, and/or clients. Once the HIPPA compliancy and security is made clear, the post will then offer some email strategies that will work with any healthcare services.
Brief Summary of HIPAA Compliance in Email Marketing
First things first... HIPPA. You and I both don't want to get fined, so lets go over the basics here.
HIPPA is a Federal Law all about two things: security and privacy. Once medical information began to be moved from the medical chart racks and onto databases, it became painfully clear that the odds of private, personal information being leaked or stolen dramatically increased. The goal of the HIPAA guidelines was to protect "electronic protected health information" (ePHI). This includes patient names, medical record numbers, treatment plans, and other personal health details.
Because this information is so thoroughly protected, you need A) clear, B) understood, C) explicit permission from your patientds/clients before you share, use, or reveal ANY of their ePHI, both with other healthcare-related entities, your target audience, your subscribers, or the wider world.
For more info on HIPPA and gaining your patients permission, check out this blog post on HIPPA and patient testimonials. Trust me... if patient's are willing to post a positive review, then they are DEFINITELY willing to recieve emails!
Choosing the Right Email Marketing Platforms for Healthcare
As already stated, HIPPA complicates email marketing a little bit by requiring any healthcare business dealing with patient dPHI to have a HIPPA compliant email provider.
Though google dominates personal email, it is not the best choice for many buisinesses and industries. And that's because email providers are differnet from one another. Google is not yahoo is not mail chimp is not Klaviyo is not whatever they use at the Pentagon. Each have different aesthetics, benefits, AND levels of security. Not every platform is the same, and you want to discover which meets your needs best, matches your budget, all while remaining a secure form of communicationt hat is HIPPA compliant.
"What Makes an Email Marketing Platform HIPAA Compliant?"
A HIPAA compliant email marketing platform focuses on privacy and security. It has a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with healthcare providers. The platform uses encryption to keep health information safe. It also ensures that data is stored securely. Additionally, it offers tools that help healthcare organizations follow HIPAA rules.
When looking at different providers, here are some key things to check:
Business Associate Agreement: Any third party that has access to personalized information (including freelancers!) must sign Business Associate Agreement (BAA) before working with said data. It explains what both sides understand HIPPA, the purposes that the third party can discplose PHI, and information about those third parties.
Encryption Capabilities: The platform must have strong encryption, specifically end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Rather than merely securing any data on servers, it also secures any data that is being transmitted by coding the email before being sent. Only a decryption key can read the coded information.
Access Control: The service should have detailed access controls. This allows you to manage who can see PHI based on their roles.
Audit Trails: Having good audit trails helps you track who accessed data. This can help you spot potential security issues and improves your compliance efforts.
Several of the most popular email providers like Mailchimp and Constant Contact have specific, HIPPA compliant plans, so they could work for smaller clinics with subscribers in the low hundreds. But the platforms were not created with healthcare in mind and are not optimized for both the marketing and security needs of doctors, physicians, therapist, etc.
For a thorough review of the top HIPPA compliant email providers, check out this post by PAUBOX. It goes over how each platform works, services, pricing, and so much more.
That said, many of these problems can be solved by an "all-in-one" healthcare platform such as MyChart or Healthfully. This "patient portal" method avoids the horns of the security-dilemma by merely sending an email reminder to the patient's personal email reminding them that they have a message in their patient portal. But while these solve the security issue, most patient portals do not have optimized marketing capabilities.
Looking to Improve Your Healthcare Email Marketing?
How to Build Your Patient Email List
Let me be loud and clear:
You CANNOT just add patient email addresses from the intial fill out form to subscriber list and start sending emails.
Not only is that not HIPPA compliant, but that violates the basic laws surrounding emails (CAN-SPAM act). You need people to not only agree that you can send emails, but also a description of the email content (ie what KIND of emails), and for what purposes (ie. education content, patient satisfaction survey).
Hand them an opt-in form when they come for their first appointment. Don't use pre-checked boxes buried somewhere with other permission; have it be a separate form. Have the front desk representative explain to them WHY they will be receiving these emails and how it will benefit them. It’s vital to have clear consent from them. Ask visitors to check a box themselves to show they agree to receive said emails.
Personally, I think this HIPPA requirement is a huge ADVANTAGE for healthcare email marketing!
And here's why:
Since you are doing it in IN PERSON... there is already a level of buy-in that goes waaaaay beyond ecommerce and even most brick-and mortar businesses.
Because each email is related to their health, one if the basic, universal human needs, you don;t have to convince them that it is important (valuable), just that the emails are RELEVANT to that inhernet value.
And because you must explain what kind of emails you send, you can have a sheet or two explaining all the types of emails they want to receive, allowing you to avoid the use of "email marketing" altogether (though you probably still have to use a term like "promotional emails")!
For example, you can ask permissions like: "would you like ....
"... email to provide appointment reminders?"
"... information about our other services?"
"... health suggestions straight from the doctor?"
"... stories from other patients in a similar journey?"
"... to answer a survey about your experience here?"
"... an email when we have a new service or machine?"
With questions like this, you can immediately segment your patients into different healthcare email marketing campaigns. This is one of the "email best practices" insisted upon by every email marketer worth their salt, and as healthcare professionals you can segment your subscriber list the moment the potential patients becomes current patients.
If you are a larger business in the healthcare industry, perhaps one not providing direct primary care, there are many ways you can grow your email list naturally, not just with sign-up forms. Use social media to help by creating interesting posts that show why joining your email list is valuable. You can also provide perks like downloadable guides, special content, or early access to sales. With the right resources, host health-related webinars or workshops can immediately provide value and connect you to more potential customers.
Additional Tips for Healthcare Email Design and Strategy
Always be RELEVANT: Content should resonate with patients, providing value through health tips, event updates, or educational resources. You can share useful health advice, teach them about common health issues, or give seasonal tips like how to prevent the flu in winter... but if your subscribers do not feel it is relevant, then it doesn't matter. When you think of ideas for content, focus on what would really help your patients
Segment Based on Preferences: You should segment your email list by patient demographics, medical history, or interests. This way, you send targeted content that speaks to each person.
Email as Much as You Can: Do not worry about "sending too much"; 99% of people email far too little, and odds are if you are worried about that then you are not emailing enough! Start with once a week, and increase to 2x a week.
Find the Best Time to Email: You want to find out when your target audience will engage the most. For example, sending emails on weekdays during lunchtime or early evenings may get more opens than sending them very early in the morning.
Vary the Style of Email: Offer to send newsletters, content, reminders, follow ups, customer success sotries. videos, links to helpful blogs. Do not just send them bills and offers for them to purchase something; you want a 4:1 content to offer balance
Analyze Campaign Success: Track important numbers like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Pay close attention to these numbers to see how well your campaigns are doing. A/B testing can help you learn more.
Conclusion: Essential Steps for Compliant Email Campaigns
I figued the best use of the conclusion was to do a brief summary of what is needed for HIPPA compliant email campaigns:
Business Associate Agreements: If you use an email marketing service, they are a "business associate" under HIPAA. Make sure they agree to protect PHI by signing a business associate agreement!
Crystal Clear Consent: Don’t guess! Always get clear permission from patients before sending them marketing emails. Remember, if they don't respond, that's not okay – it could be a HIPAA violation!
Granular Consent Options: Allow patients to choose what information they feel okay sharing and how they want to be contacted. Some may like emails, while others might want a more personal touch.
Transparency in Terms of Service: Be honest about how you use patient data in your marketing efforts. Being clear helps to build trust. Keep in mind that being truthful is the best choice!
Accessible Opt-Out Mechanisms: This can be as simple as adding an "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of every email. We can also provide a phone number where a kind person can help remove them from the list. We do not want to make them jump through hoops!
Not following the rules in healthcare email marketing can cause serious problems. This includes heavy fines, legal issues, and harm to the healthcare industry's reputation. Losing patients' trust can hurt a practice for a long time.
Long story short: keep patient information safe by choosing the right email marketign platforms. Get explicit patient permission and use your email marketing to encourage and educate your subscribers on their health journey with relevant content and offerings that are segmented as much as possible.
