What is HIPAA-Compliant Texting?
HIPAA compliance is the rules and regulations governing how healthcare organizations handle health information. It’s required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) which was passed in 1996.
The objective of HIPAA is to ensure that patient data is protected, stored, and shared appropriately.
With the help of a HIPAA-compliant texting apps, healthcare organisations can protect electronic protected health information (ePHI) while maintaining open channels of communication for authorised users.
Protected health information (PHI) can be securely sent via text using HIPAA-compliant texting for medical professionals.
The use of a HIPAA compliant text app has been found to improve employee workflows, boost productivity, and raise the bar for patient healthcare. Many healthcare facilities use secure texting to protect sensitive communications and comply with industry regulations.
However, this method is not secure or HIPAA-compliant if you type a message on your iPhone and send it to patients.
By using HIPAA-compliant texting for medical professionals, you can:
- Book appointments more easily and quickly.
- Reach out to patients who are difficult to reach.
- Reduce the number of telephone calls made to patients’ phones.
Why is It Required in Healthcare?
On August 21, 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted with the dual objectives of increasing the number of Americans with health insurance coverage and improving the efficiency of health care delivery.
HIPAA regulations are designed to protect patient data from being viewed by unauthorized individuals or organizations. HIPAA also protects your information from being used by health care providers for marketing purposes.
The most significant benefit of having a HIPAA Security Plan is that it helps ensure that everyone involved with your care is following the rules—from doctors and nurses to administrators in the medical facility itself—which makes sure that everyone involved understands what they’re responsible for when it comes time for payment claims or lawsuits down the road.
HIPAA-compliant texting for medical professionals is a new and exciting way to communicate with patients. It is a great way to engage with your patients through personalized, automated messages and will help you streamline your appointment scheduling process.
- The ability to communicate from any desktop computer or mobile device allows medical professionals to receive patient information “on-the-go” via secure texting.
- There is no longer a need for follow-up emails or phone tags because delivery notifications and read receipts verify that messages were delivered to and read by the intended recipient.
- If a mobile device is stolen or lost, features like message recall, message lifespan, and remote wipe help remove any risk of sensitive data being compromised.
- Users can easily locate one another within their network thanks to the integration of secure texting apps with a corporate directory, which enables administrators to quickly manage accessibility settings.
- The automatically generated administrator audit logs speed up risk analysis and guarantee adherence to organisational policies regarding the use of texting apps.
Each of these features helps to raise patient healthcare standards while being economical. They each improve employee workflows, ensure the integrity of ePHI, and increase productivity.
Related:
• Healthcare SMS templates
• Patient outreach SMS templates
• Patient appointment scheduling SMS templates
• Patient appointment reminder SMS templates
Role of Text Messaging in Patient Engagement, Communication, and Appointment Scheduling
HIPAA-compliant texting for medical professionals is simple: just set up a trigger so that when your patient receives a text message from you, their phone will automatically respond with an appointment confirmation.
You can also send personalized messages to help remind them about upcoming visits, schedule appointments, survey patients about their experiences at the clinic, book them for follow-up appointments, etc.
Personalized and Automated Triggers
You can create workflows with a custom trigger that will set off a chain of messages relevant to the patient, minimizing manual intervention which otherwise increases response time between the stakeholder and medico.
Appointment booking
SMS and mobile notifications can help with appointment scheduling and attendance, which are crucial first interactions with digital health providers. If a patient’s behaviour within a health app suggests they’re wanting to obtain care, health apps may send them mobile push alerts encouraging them to schedule appointments.
Patient visit survey
You can add one-click surveys to better understand the patient experience and optimize the services offered accordingly, as opposed to traditional grievance cells which rarely works towards optimising services according to feedbacks or reviews from the patients.
Like any other industry, text messaging plays a significant role in increasing user engagement. Only 19% of consumers say they can text their provider, but 98% of consumers like using text messages for healthcare communication, so there is potential for businesses to meet consumers where they are in their daily lives truly.
HIPAA Compliant Texting Apps
Almost 23 million texts are being sent every day and SMS have a higher opening than emails. But the difference between regular and HIPAA-compliant texting is that the latter is secure and optimized for sending protected health information.
Here are some applications that let you do the same,
- OhMD: This HIPAA-compliant texting platform enables you to send/receive surveys, images, files, intake forms, etc. It is trusted by more than 300,000 healthcare professionals. Reminders for appointments can also be sent through this platform. OhMD has over fifty EHR integrations.
- TigerConnect: TigerConnect encrypts messages sent and received using 256-bit AES. It is not possible to copy, paste, or forward the messages themselves. Additionally, before accessing data through TigerConnect’s secure messaging platform, users must authenticate their identity with a special username and password.
- Halo Health: Providers can send and receive PHI-related texts using Halo Health’s HIPAA-compliant secure texting app. As a result, efficiency is improved and clinician liability is reduced.
LeadSquared: LeadSquared’s Omni channel HIPAA-compliant patient management platform with custom integration for the app of their choice. Its CRM helps track all interactions while enabling secure messaging. You can read more on this in the section below.
Leadsquared’s HIPAA Compliant CRM
Leadsquared is the Omni channel HIPAA Compliant patient management platform for HIPAA-compliant texting for medical professionals, emailing, calling, and more. Over 2000+ businesses trust it across 24 countries.
Here’s what LeadSquared offers with its easy-to-use CRM, which requires zero IT support or intervention.
Capturing Patient Inquiry
Assemble top-notch leads from various channels into one system. Eliminate all lead leakage.
Scheduling Appointments
To ensure smooth appointments and shorter wait times, sync your medical appointment scheduler with LeadSquared.
Automation of Patient Intake
Automate the distribution of patients to the appropriate agents after automated patient inquiry capture via offline and online channels.
Patient Administration
With intelligent automation, you can hasten the sales process and seamlessly manage the entire customer experience.
The Score for Patient Engagement
Understanding the level of engagement of your patients will help you reduce churn and enable personalized communications for them.
Built-in Dialer
By monitoring and recording conversations, you can learn about the problems that customers have and how your staff is addressing them.
Integration of EMR
Integrate your primary EMR programs with LeadSquared’s HIPAA-compliant healthcare CRM to improve patient care.
Automation of Marketing
Establish meaningful and pertinent conversations with everyone, from prospects to customers, based on different triggers.
Incorporating Social Media
LeadSquared allows you to integrate all of your social media channels seamlessly. Attend the discussions that matter.
What else? With a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in place to maintain PHI security and overall HIPAA compliance, LeadSquared CRM is entirely HIPAA compliant. We have complied with all pertinent legal and industry standards for information security.
LeadSquared is incredibly versatile and economical. You can easily tailor our CRM to your needs and priorities without relying too heavily on your IT development and support teams. You can significantly lower your overhead expenses as a result.
Moreover, you can integrate your EHR system with LeadSquared’s HIPAA-compliant CRM to develop enduring relationships with your patients. It helps you automate reporting and patient and doctor onboarding, and, most importantly, it lessens the difficulties of double entry.
You can create a visual representation of the various phases of your patient’s interactions using LeadSquared’s patient journey builder. You can then set up automation to start the appropriate conversations.
Wrapping Up
Although HIPAA law is complex and changes frequently, it is crucial to ensure that everyone is in compliance. One must be ready for the changes and fully aware of these HIPAA directives. This sector needs flexibility amid ongoing healthcare reforms and other disruptive movements. With LeadSquared, you will always be compliance ready. Want to know more?
