Covered entities and their business associates must be HIPAA compliant to protect the privacy of patients and their protected health information (PHI). The growth of digital tools has made HIPAA compliance increasingly complicated.
One popular approach is using analytics platforms to collect meaningful data about website visitors. While these solutions help boost patient engagement, they can also lead to potential HIPAA violations. Therefore, covered entities need to ensure that their analytics tool meets compliance obligations. Let's find out if Monsido is HIPAA compliant or not.
SEE ALSO: HIPAA compliant email
About Monsido
Monsido is an intuitive platform that audits websites and provides recommendations to help companies improve their online presence. With in-depth insights on content, branding, and accessibility, businesses can better address issues and discover opportunities to enhance the user experience.
Monsido and business associate agreements
A business associate is a person or entity that performs functions or activities that involves the use or disclosure of PHI. A business associate agreement (BAA) must be signed for a third-party vendor to be considered HIPAA compliant.
This is a written document that outlines the obligations of the business associate to keep PHI secure. If both parties do not sign a BAA, the vendor cannot be considered HIPAA compliant. There is no mention of HIPAA or willingness to sign a BAA on Monsido's website.
Monsido and data security
Looking beyond the BAA, data security is another critical component of maintaining HIPAA compliance. This means covered entities should also consider the safeguards that a vendor has to protect PHI.
Monsido hosts all data locally and offers a data privacy add-on for extra protection. This tool evaluates sites for compliance with privacy standards and scans for potential risks.
The company's privacy policy states that Monsido "takes reasonable steps to maintain the security of the personally identifiable information, but no data transmission over the internet is guaranteed to be completely secure."
Furthermore, the company notes explicitly that non-encrypted email communication is not protected and recommends sending confidential information through physical mail. Monsido also uses TLS, HTTPS, and other security features. However, "these may not be available on all portions of the website and services."
Is Monsido HIPAA compliant?
No, there is no indication that Monsido will sign a BAA.
Boost protection with Paubox
Not all analytics tools meet HIPAA requirements. Conducting your due diligence is critical to avoid costly fines and other corrective action. Selecting a HIPAA compliant solution is a smart place to start. However, healthcare providers should take further steps to protect PHI with stronger email security.
Designed to integrate with your current email platforms such as Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, Paubox Email Suite enables HIPAA compliant email by default. It also automatically encrypts every outbound message.
This means you don't have to decide which emails to encrypt. Additionally, your patients can receive your messages right in their inbox and don't have to navigate any additional passwords or portals.
Paubox Email Suite's Plus and Premium plan levels also include advanced inbound email security tools for more protection. For example, our patent-pending Zero Trust Email feature uses email AI to confirm that an email is legitimate. Plus, our patented ExecProtect solution quickly catches display name spoofing attempts.