Why You Shouldn’t Use Mailchimp to Send out COVID-19 Information to Patients

There has been growing concern surrounding COVID-19 since January 30th when the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern.”

Now that the WHO has officially characterized the virus as a pandemic, the situation is even more urgent.

As a healthcare provider, you want to be proactive about helping your patients sift through the noise to determine what they need to do to protect themselves and their families from the coronavirus.

However, you might not realize that using a standard email marketing tool is a recipe for a HIPAA violation and subsequent fines.

Mailchimp is a huge player in the email marketing business.  However, as we have previously reported, it is not HIPAA compliant.

Why healthcare providers can’t use Mailchimp

From talking to customers, we have learned that one of the first things a compliancy consultant often tells them to do is stop using Mailchimp immediately.

Mailchimp is simply not in the business of providing HIPAA compliant marketing services.

We can see this for ourselves on its terms of use page:

20. Compliance with Laws
You represent and warrant that your use of Mailchimp will comply with all applicable laws and regulations. You’re responsible for determining whether our Services are suitable for you to use in light of any regulations like HIPAA, GLB, EU Data Privacy Laws, or other laws. If you’re subject to regulations (like HIPAA) and you use our Service, then we won’t be liable if our Service doesn’t meet those requirements.

Large companies like Mailchimp are unwilling to take on the risk, burden, and overhead of HIPAA compliance.  In addition, their email marketing solution is not built to send encrypted email in the first place.

Use Project Orca for your healthcare email marketing needs

Here at Paubox we have seen an increased interest in Project Orca since the coronavirus outbreak. Project Orca is our answer to the need in the healthcare field for a HIPAA compliant email marketing solution.

It is the only solution that will:

• Sign a BAA
• Provide military-grade encryption
• Allow you to include PHI in your marketing emails
• Allow patients to read your emails directly from their inbox with no extra steps

In addition, Project Orca is powered by our secure email API, which is HITRUST CSF certified.

In short, Project Orca is the best HIPAA compliant email marketing solution on the market.

Using the tool, you can maintain HIPAA compliance while harnessing the power of personalized email marketing.  You can start sending emails which include PHI, and you can segment your recipient lists.

For example, in regards to COVID-19, you could send seniors and people with underlying health issues a specific message which addresses their increased health risks from the disease.  You could also contact your clients based on their location with personalized guidelines.

Arguably the information that you share with your patients could save lives, as it would help people receive the right treatment when they need it, and it would free up hospital beds for other patients if they don’t need it.

Really, the sky’s the limit on uses for personalized email marketing in healthcare – but until now organizations subject to HIPAA have barely been able to use it.

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/shouldnt-use-mailchimp-send-out-covid-19-information-patients