HIPAA Compliant Digital Marketing for Healthcare Practices

July 8, 2020

Nowadays, you can shop online for anything – from chopsticks that double as LED lightsabers to a wig for your dog (seriously, we’re not kidding), and shopping online for a healthcare provider is no different. The internet plays a key role in a healthcare consumer’s decision making, in fact, according to a study released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “80 percent of Internet users, or about 93 million Americans, have searched for a health-related topic online.” Let’s face it, we use the internet for basically anything and everything nowadays especially as we continue to adapt in today’s COVID-19 world, which is why it’s important for your practice to understand what is and isn’t allowed when it comes to HIPAA compliance and online marketing. 

Using online marketing as a tool can be extremely beneficial for practices. Most medical practices have a website and many use social media and email marketing as tools to reach potential patients – ensuring you are utilizing these platforms in a HIPAA compliant manner is imperative to marketing in the right ways while still ensuring the privacy of your patients and security of your practice.

Whether it be for your practice website, social media page, or advertisement – if you would like to use any type of patient information there are some strict guidelines to follow:

  • Obtain written consent from the patient beforehand
  • Remove all personally identifiable information from the post or content  
  • Ensure PHI is not present in any digital assets, such as photos of patients, text that includes PHI, or video

Your Practice Website

Having a HIPAA compliant website for your practice enables patients to search for information regarding the services that you provide, and ultimately drive new patients to you. The following are some key tips to follow when creating and maintaining the website for your practice:  

  • Whether it’s your website, an app, or your patient portal, encryption must be in place when PHI is sent or received, as well as when it is at rest. 
  • If your practice utilizes online contact or appointment request forms, make sure that the information collected is encrypted when stored, whether it’s on an internal server, hosted server or vendor application). 
  • Include an SSL certificate on your website – your IT provider can assist with this if you are unsure what an SSL certificate means.
  • Store data on a HIPAA compliant server that has updated antivirus installed, a smart backup battery for power failures, offsite backup for redundancy, and firewalls for entry-level network protection. 
  • Ensure the website has your Notice of Privacy Practices and Privacy Policy visible and easily defined. Update these documents as necessary.

Email Marketing 

If choosing to use email marketing to engage with patients there are some key safeguards you must take to ensure you’re protecting your patients’ information and aren’t setting yourself up for a HIPAA violation: 

  • Do not create a marketing campaign that utilizes any form of patient information without obtaining written permission first. 
  • If you choose to use a third-party marketing tool to send your emails, you must make sure that they are HIPAA compliant as well and you should have the proper Business Associate Agreement in place. 
  • When emailing content that contains PHI, it must be encrypted end-to-end.
  • Never send email communications to patients who did not request it. You can simplify this authorization process by asking patients if they would like to receive emails from your practice on your sign-in sheet or patient consent forms. 
  • Always inform patients about the potential risks involved with email communications and the risks involved with sharing PHI electronically in general – no matter how secured and protected your practice is, breaches are always a potential concern.

Social Media 

Nowadays social media platforms play a large role in consumers’ decision making. Having a strong social media presence can be a great asset to your practice, but in order to use social media to your advantage, you should follow these guidelines: 

  • Keep your personal social media accounts separate from your practice’s account.
  • Refrain from personally friending or connecting with patients on social media sites.
  • Even if a patient mentions your practice or their medical condition, treatment, or any other type of information publicly, you cannot respond to or repost the content in any way.
  • If including a patient testimonial or picture for an advertisement, you should have a standard photo and video release form on hand to receive permission beforehand.  
  • Stay up to date on any changes to patient protection laws that may impact regulations surrounding social media use for your practice. 
  • Have a strong and updated social media policy for your practice to train your staff on what is and isn’t allowed to be posted. You can also establish roles and responsibilities for posting on your practice’s behalf.
  • When posting something online, whether it be social media or your website – you should never include any identifiers that could link a patient to your practice. Some of these identifiers include:
    • Names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.
    • Medical record information
    • Full face photographs 
    • Other biometric identifiers 

Where marketing regulations get tricky is patient reviews or comments on digital platforms. While patients are able to post a review or comment about your practice, you cannot respond in any capacity that ties the patient to your practice. A dental practice in Texas was faced with a $10,000 fine along with a 2-year corrective action plan after they responded to a patients’ Yelp review. The practice had responded to multiple reviews the investigation found, disclosing patient information including names, medical diagnoses, and more and was only hit with a small fine due to their immediate cooperation with the Office for Civil Rights.

On top of ensuring that you’re meeting all the criteria for a safeguarded online presence, you should also create a well-documented strategy that clearly outlines what’s permitted and what isn’t for your staff. This should cover the necessary policies and procedures for marketing to patient’s whether it is done online, over the phone, or in person.

RECENT POSTS

Related posts

Dental Practice HIPAA Settlement
Abyde News, Fines, HIPAA

What Every Dental Practice Can Learn From the $140K Shen Smiles Settlement

October 9, 2026 No comments yet

October 9, 2026 The latest HIPAA settlement doesn’t involve a hospital system or a massive ransomware attack. It involves a practice that probably looks a lot like yours. Shen Smiles is a solo dental practice in Drums, Pennsylvania. It started with a former patient’s complaint about getting their health records. It led to a broader OCR investigation and a $140,000 settlement. The lesson? Every HIPAA-regulated organization, big or small, can face enforcement.   What happened? Under federal law, patients must be given access to their records within 30 days, with one possible 30-day extension if the patient is notified in writing within the first 30 days. In April 2020, a former patient’s attorney filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The complaint alleged that the patient had requested their records multiple times without receiving access. The public documents don’t say when the first request was made. OCR’s investigation went beyond the original complaint. According to the resolution agreement, OCR found that patient records weren’t properly maintained and that staff hadn’t received formal HIPAA Privacy Rule training. OCR also said the practice couldn’t produce evidence that it had HIPAA policies and procedures in place, including for patient access requests, or that it had reasonably safeguarded patient information. During the investigation, the practice stated that it couldn’t provide the records because a workforce member had stolen them. The public documents don’t address whether a breach assessment was done. As a general rule, though, HIPAA presumes that an impermissible acquisition, access, use, or disclosure of unsecured patient information is a breach. A breach can require notifying HHS and affected patients, including steps patients can take to protect themselves. These are baseline requirements every covered entity is expected to have in place. Policies and training give a team a HIPAA playbook. Without one, staff at any practice may not know what to do when a patient asks for records or records go missing. OCR proposed a $140,000 civil money penalty in July 2024. Shen Smiles requested a hearing before an administrative law judge, but the two sides reached a resolution agreement in August 2026, before the hearing took place. Under the agreement, the practice agreed to pay $140,000. The agreement is not an admission of liability.   The Takeaway for Practices Patient access has been an OCR priority for years through its HIPAA Right of Access Initiative, and this case marks its 56th Right of Access enforcement action. It also took more than six years from complaint to resolution. As this case shows, a single complaint can lead to a broader look at your compliance program. Now is the time to ask: Do we have written HIPAA policies our team can find? Do we have a process to answer every record request within 30 days? Can we prove every team member has completed HIPAA training? If any of those gave you pause, now’s the time to fix it, before OCR comes asking. Looking for the first step? Meet with one of our compliance experts to see where you currently stand. 

Ambry Phishing Settlement
Abyde News, Fines, HIPAA

$700K HIPAA Settlement: What the Ambry Genetics Phishing Breach Teaches Every Practice

September 21, 2026 No comments yet

September 21, 2026   The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has announced its biggest HIPAA settlement of the year, reaching nearly a million dollars.  Ambry, a genetic testing and clinical genomics provider based in Aliso Viejo, California is at the center of this enforcement. A settlement was reached over a 2020 phishing attack that exposed the Protected Health Information (PHI) of more than 225,000 individuals. This settlement is a clear reminder that even large organizations trip up on HIPAA requirements.    What happened In January 2020, an employee email account at Ambry was compromised through a phishing attack.  The breach potentially exposed a wide range of PHI, including names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security Numbers, financial details, and more. Ambry reported the breach to OCR in March 2020, which kicked off the investigation.    Where OCR found gaps OCR’s investigation identified several HIPAA Security Rule gaps, including: No accurate, thorough risk analysis of risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI No process for cutting off access to ePHI when an employee left or no longer needed access No unique user IDs for tracking who was accessing ePHI systems These are baseline HIPAA requirements that every Covered Entity and Business Associate is expected to have in place.   The settlement terms Ambry paid $700,000 and agreed to a two-year corrective action plan, under which it must: Complete a thorough risk analysis of ePHI confidentiality, integrity, and availability Build and execute a risk management plan addressing what that analysis turns up Review and update Security Rule policies and procedures as needed Implement unique user identification across all ePHI systems Train the whole workforce on those updated policies The takeaway for practices When 90% of healthcare hacks start with a successful phishing attempt, it’s key your team is aware of the role they play to keep data safe. Every practice should ask; Do we know exactly where our ePHI lives and how it moves through our systems? Do we have a current, documented risk analysis? Would we catch it fast if a former employee’s access wasn’t revoked? Looking for the first step of addressing these gaps? Meet with one of our compliance experts to see where you currently stand. 

Azul Vision Right of Access
Abyde News, Fines, HIPAA

Right of Access Enforcement Hits Eye Care: Inside the Azul Vision Settlement

September 1, 2026 No comments yet

September 1, 2026   The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced its 55th settlement under the HIPAA Right of Access Initiative, and this one is a good reminder that “we’ll get to it” is an easy shortcut to a massive financial penalty.   What happened Azul Vision, Inc., a California optometry enterprise healthcare provider, took nearly two years to provide a patient her healthcare records failed to give a patient timely access to her health records. She requested her records in January 2023. She didn’t actually receive them until January 2025, or two years later, and only after OCR opened an investigation following her complaint in April 2023.   The importance of Right of Access The HIPAA Privacy Rule’s Right of Access is straightforward: patients are entitled to their healthcare records within 30 days of a request, with one possible 30-day extension if needed.    The cost Azul Vision agreed to a two-year, OCR-monitored corrective action plan and paid $50,000. The corrective action plan requires the practice to: Review and revise its written policies and procedures for Privacy Rule compliance.  Regularly report to HHS a log of every PHI access request it receives, including when it came in and when it was resolved, Train all workforce members on right of access requirements and the practice’s own procedures.   Practical takeaways Have a documented, assigned process for access requests: not an informal “someone will handle it” arrangement. Track every request against the 30-day (or extended 60-day) clock: If nothing is timestamping requests, nothing is catching the ones that slip. Train staff specifically on right of access: this is a distinct Privacy Rule obligation from general HIPAA awareness, and it’s clearly one OCR is actively enforcing.   The bottom line A single records request that went unanswered turned into a $50,000 penalty, two years of federal monitoring, and a detrimental hit to the organization’s reputation. That’s a steep price for what really comes down to a missing process. If your team can’t answer “what happens the moment a patient asks for their records?” right now, that’s the gap to close before your practice ends up as OCR’s next enforcement case. Want a streamlined way to close your compliance gaps? Meet with an Abyde expert today!