We've been seeing more vendors, customers, and prospects asking about HIPAA compliant email marketing services. Since Paubox is a business associate to thousands of customers, we’ve been wondering if they are able to use Campaign Monitor in a HIPAA compliant manner.
Today we will determine if Campaign Monitor offers HIPAA compliant email marketing service or not.
Campaign Monitor
Campaign Monitor is a global technology company that provides an easy-to-use email marketing platform. It is part of the CM Group.
What is a business associate?
A business associate is a person or company that performs certain functions or activities that involve the use or disclosure of protected health information (PHI) for a covered entity. In a nutshell, the role of a business associate is to help covered entities comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
If Campaign Monitor stores PHI on behalf of a covered entity, it is considered a business associate. According to HIPAA, even just a name is PHI if it is in any way associated with a healthcare provider—such as in a marketing email coming from your practice.
Any marketing email you send contains both a name and an email address in the header, so really, you can’t send any emails via Campaign Monitor in a HIPAA compliant manner.
Read full article: What does it mean to be a Business Associate?
Business associate agreement provisions
If a business associate provides services to a covered entity, then a business associate agreement (BAA) must be in place. A BAA is a written contract between a covered entity and a business associate and is required by law for HIPAA compliance. At a minimum, a business Associate agreement contains 10 provisions.
Campaign Monitor and the business associate agreement
We could not find anything in Campaign Monitor's documents to indicate that it will sign a BAA. We did however find a relevant passage in its Terms of Use page:
"Sensitive PII. Customer understands and acknowledges that the Services are not configured to process, receive, and/or store: 1) protected health information (“PHI”), as that term is defined under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”)"
Does Campaign Monitor offer HIPAA compliant service?
We were able to learn that Campaign Monitor is simply not in the business of providing HIPAA compliant service. The BAA is a key component to HIPAA compliance between a covered entity and a business associate, and Campaign Monitor will not sign one.
Conclusion: Campaign Monitor is not a HIPAA compliant email marketing service.
HIPAA email marketing tools comparison
To meet the unmet need for HIPAA compliant email marketing, we created Paubox Marketing. 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, Paubox Marketing is HITRUST CSF certified. Compared to the standard marketing tools, Paubox Marketing is the best option for maintaining HIPAA compliance while harnessing the power of personalized email marketing.
SEE ALSO: Why Paubox Marketing is the Best HIPAA Email Marketing Solution Available
| Company | Will they sign a BAA? | Can you send PHI? |
| Adobe Campaign | NO | NO |
| Blue Orchid Marketing | NO | NO |
| Campaign Monitor | NO | NO |
| Campaigner | NO | NO |
| Drip | NO | NO |
| Emma | NO | NO |
| GetResponse | NO | NO |
| Hubspot | NO | NO |
| L-Soft | NO | NO |
| Mad Mimi (GoDaddy) | NO | NO |
| Mailchimp | NO | NO |
| MailerLite | NO | NO |
| Marketo (Adobe) | NO | NO |
| Salesforce Pardot | NO | NO |
| SendGrid (Twilio) | NO | NO |
| Yesware | NO | NO |
| ActiveCampaign | YES | NO |
| Constant Contact | YES | NO |
| Infusionsoft by Keap | YES | NO |
| Salesforce Marketing Cloud | YES | NO |
| Eloqua (Oracle) | YES | YES ** |
| Paubox Marketing | YES | YES |
(** To use Oracle Eloqua in a HIPAA compliant manner, recipients receive two emails for every message you send. Patients must also log into a secure message center to view your message— it does not appear in their inboxes. This creates friction and makes it less likely that your patients will read your marketing email.)