Take advantage of the ease and convenience of patient messaging software — while knowing that your customers’ health information is secure. The best part is that your customers don’t need to download a separate app.
We follow all safeguards to ensure that your customers’ electronic health information is protected, and so do the companies we work with.
Textline stores consent in HIPAA-compliant cloud environments and we follow standard encryption protocol to protect your data every step of the way.
Our platform features built-in automation to obtain, document, and store patient consent, which makes the process hassle-free for your team.
There’s a reason Textline is the most secure business texting platform on the market. Textline earned a patent in 2021 for its HIPAA Secondary Consent feature. This feature creates strict controls that help protect healthcare organizations that want to message patients in a HIPAA compliant way. The consent feature is one of many ways Textline protects our HIPAA-covered customers. Under the law, it’s a requirement that any healthcare organization wanting to text must gain patients' explicit consent first. Our patented consent process ensures this occurs.
Here’s a breakdown of how our consent process works.
All healthcare providers — as well as vendors and business partners that have access to their data — need to comply with federal guidelines that protect health information. Having a HIPAA compliant texting app ensures you're never at risk of a HIPAA violation while texting patients.
All users receive an automated consent message before conversations can start.
Stop playing phone tag. SMS makes coordinating patient care simple and easy.
Use departments or internal discussion tools to collaborate with coworkers.
Give medical advice in real-time, and safely share important documents.
Able Health is a provider offering in-home medical care and assistance to individuals with developmental disabilities. The organization’s team consists of 200 administrative professionals and 1,600 field staff, spread throughout the U.S.
Able Health uses Textline’s Announcement feature to send important updates to field staff while being 100 percent HIPAA compliant. Textline helped Able Health implement a HIPAA-compliant texting process and ensure protected patient information was secure on our platform. Overall, Able Health’s communication and engagement with staff improved significantly after implementing SMS into its communication strategy.
Standard back-and-forth SMS, like between two personal mobile phones, doesn’t have the necessary safeguards to keep protected health information secure. As a result, patient privacy could be compromised if you don’t select a HIPAA-compliant texting service.
A HIPAA breach can result in significant monetary fines. According to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, which oversees HIPAA, organizations can face fines of up to $63,973 per violation.
Additionally, a HIPAA security breach can also result in reputational damage. Don’t let customers lose trust in your business because you didn’t select a HIPAA-compliant texting solution.
HIPAA compliance is available for our Standard and Pro plans.
Sign up for a new number, or text enable your existing one.
We’ll provide you with a Business Associate Agreement via Hello Sign.
After users accept an automated consent request, you can start texting them!
Textline’s SMS platform is HIPAA compliant from end-to-end. Take a look at some of the reasons it’s the top choice for safely texting patients.
Textline was built for two-way communication. You can easily reply to any patient message.
Securely send attachments like documents, photos, videos, and more to contacts.
Textline has a built-in process to obtain, document, and store patient consent.
Unlike many HIPAA-compliant messaging platforms on the market, patients aren’t redirected via a link to a patient portal to communicate. Instead, they just reply in the text thread.
Patients don’t need to download an app to communicate with your practice. They receive messages straight to their phone.
For texting to be HIPAA compliant, medical professionals must establish patient consent, sign a business associate agreement with HIPAA-compliant SMS software, and set opt-out procedures. More specifically, patients must consent to be contacted via text and be warned of the risks of communicating health information over an unencrypted channel. Overall, texting is HIPAA compliant with the proper controls.
After establishing patient consent to text and sharing the proper risk warning, medical appointment reminders are HIPAA compliant. It’s a best practice to only include the necessary information in the text message, like the provider name, date, time, and appointment location.
HIPAA-compliant software providers will have technical safeguards to protect customer health data. This includes end-to-end data encryption on the platform so unauthorized parties can’t intercept it. Additionally, the platform should have multi-factor authentication measures to prevent unauthorized access. You’ll also want to ensure the provider offers business associate agreements and enters into one with you.
HIPAA-compliant SMS allows you to communicate with patients via their native text messaging app. This pushes messages directly to their mobile phones without additional hardware or logins. Text messages have a 98 percent open rate, ensuring your important messages are read. With HIPAA-compliant SMS, patients can see and reply to texts like they do with friends and family. For healthcare messaging apps, patients are often redirected to a healthcare portal like their EHR to communicate. This requires patients to log in before seeing a message. There are pros and cons to both messaging methods.
Messages to patients should comply with the minimum necessary standard. Providers must share only the minimum amount of information needed in a message. To avoid accidental disclosure, we recommend creating text message templates, which we call Shortcuts on Textline. These templates will help your organization’s messages only disclose the information patients need. We also recommend saving sensitive information like test results for phone calls.
You should also:
Textline has a built-in secondary consent feature for our HIPAA clients. With this feature, we ensure the necessary authorization from patients is obtained before our platform even allows you to text them. For example, you can’t type anything into the message bar if a contact has yet to confirm their consent.
You can also easily send a message requesting consent that describes the risks of SMS with our “request consent” button.
Our platform also allows you to quickly see the consent status of each contact and stores patient consent for your organization.
If you’re curious about HIPAA compliant business texting and how your team can communicate securely with patients, our sales representatives are always ready to answer questions and provide you with a demo.
