Improve Patient Outcomes with Healthcare Email Marketing

In 2018, the healthcare industry became the largest employer in the United States for the first time. 

This is due in large part to the growing healthcare needs of aging baby boomers, who are currently estimated at about 73 million strong. 

About 10,000 baby boomers a day reach retirement age, and by 2030 all boomers will be at least 65.  This segment of the population is especially at risk during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Secure patient outreach during a pandemic

Email marketing is a proven communication method across all industries with a high return on investment, but the healthcare industry hasn’t had a HIPAA compliant tool to take advantage of it – until we created Paubox Marketing.

As we learned during our recent Paubox customer interviews about how healthcare providers are reacting to COVID-19, many of our proactive clients have been reaching out to their patients about the coronavirus pandemic.

Some customers told us they email their patients using a bulk blind carbon copy (BCC) method, which puts limits on how many messages you can send.

On the other hand some healthcare providers risk HIPAA fines by using a standard marketing platform which is not HIPAA compliant.

We talk to companies every day who are panicking because they just found out they have been out of HIPAA compliance for years by using Mailchimp or Constant Contact, or any of the other mainstream marketing tools.

With Paubox Marketing however, healthcare providers don’t have to worry about HIPAA compliance.  They can segment and send personalized emails to their patients based on risk factors or anything else they deem relevant.

Why email marketing for healthcare hasn’t existed – until now

For the past ten years in a row, email has been the sales channel generating the highest return on investment.  For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI.  However, the healthcare industry has largely sat this one out.

This is of course because of HIPAA rules about safeguarding American’s protected health information (PHI).

If a healthcare provider entrusts PHI to a third party like an email marketing vendor, a business associate agreement (BAA) is required by law.

The BAA requirement knocks out most standard email marketing vendors from the running for covered entities; most of them won’t sign one.  This includes Mailchimp and HubSpot, two of the most common tools marketers use.

However, there are a few vendors that will sign a BAA, such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Constant Contact.  But in both cases, the company’s BAA explicitly states that you cannot use their platform to send HIPAA compliant email which includes PHI.

On the other hand, Oracle Eloqua can be used in a HIPAA compliant manner. However, it is difficult to use and configure, and most importantly, it requires recipients to log into a secure portal to read their messages which decreases open rates.

This is in contrast to Paubox Marketing which will sign a BAA and allows your patients to read their emails directly from their inbox with no extra steps.

Improving patient outcomes with email marketing

As recently reported in Forbes, these days marketers are able to send precision emails to each recipient, delivering the right content at the right time. 

For healthcare, this means sending emails that contain PHI, which Paubox Marketing makes possible in a HIPAA compliant manner.

Email marketing for healthcare providers perfectly aligns with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) value-based care initiative.  For the past 12 years the US government has been moving towards paying providers based on the quality, rather than the quantity, of the care that they give patients.  

Healthcare email marketing can reduce costs and improve health outcomes for patients.  When health services aren’t streamlined or they fail to account for long-term care, health deteriorates and emergencies arise. 

The current COVID-19 global outbreak is a great example of this.  With Paubox Marketing, healthcare providers can let their patients know about updates to their practice during shelter in place mandates, as well as inform them about the latest recommended precautions from the CDC.

They can also send specific emails to patients who are at higher risk of serious complications or death from the virus because of their age or health condition.

Paubox Marketing has a multitude of uses outside of our current health crisis, however.  Healthcare providers can use the tool to automatically send appointment reminders, pre-op instructions (such as fasting before a procedure), and follow up emails, to name just a few. 

This will lead to fewer missed appointments (saving money and ensuring timely treatment, thus avoiding emergencies) as well as better health outcomes (by checking in with patients after their procedures and on a regular basis).

Healthcare professionals who want to grow their business and improve patient outcomes should strongly consider expanding their marketing presence.

Indeed, with Paubox Marketing, the sky is the limit on what you can communicate to patients.

Try Paubox Marketing for free and make your email marketing HIPAA compliant today. START FOR FREE

The original version of this page was published at:  https://www.paubox.com/blog/improve-patient-outcomes-healthcare-email-marketing/