Table of Contents:
- Intermedia
- What is a Business Associate?
- Business Associate Agreement provisions
- Intermedia and the Business Associate Agreement
- Does Intermedia offer HIPAA Compliant Email Hosting Service?
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 Intermedia in a HIPAA compliant manner.
We know the HIPAA industry is vast, so we can empathize with just how many people need to use cloud services in this sector. Today we will determine if Intermedia offers HIPAA compliant email marketing service or not.
Intermedia
Intermedia markets itself as a leading one-stop shop for Unified Communications, Exchange email, VoIP, file sharing, & other business cloud services.
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 for a Covered Entity. In a nutshell, the role of a Business Associate is to help Covered Entities comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
Since Intermedia is a cloud-based service, if it stores protected health information (PHI) on behalf of a Covered Entity, it is certainly considered a Business Associate. 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.
Read full article: Business Associate Agreement Provisions
Intermedia and the Business Associate Agreement
We checked the Intermedia site for mention of their ability to sign a Business Associate Agreement. We found the answer we were looking for on a page called HIPAA and business email. On that page, we found the following section:
We also discovered Intermedia is a significant provider of Hosted Exchange email hosting service.Intermedia and HIPAA Compliance
Intermedia services are designed to meet the privacy and security requirements for Protected Health Information (PHI). Our policies, procedures, technologies and services are audited by a third-party to validate conformance with HIPAA privacy and security requirements, and Intermedia will execute a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement with Covered Entities.
Does Intermedia offer HIPAA compliant service?
The Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is a key component to HIPAA compliance between a Covered Entity and a Business Associate. We were able to learn the following about Intermedia and its stance on HIPAA compliance:
- Intermedia is willing to sign BAAs with their customers
- Intermedia is a large provider of Hosted Exchange Email
- Intermedia's BAA does cover its Hosted Exchange Email environment
Conclusion: Intermedia is capable of providing HIPAA compliant email hosting services.