Choosing a HIPAA-compliant communication platform can be easy, giving you the ability to integrate a high-quality communication tool to promote growth in your practice and keep PHI secure without any hassle.

In any healthcare organization, the security of information is essential to its success. If you want to guarantee that all protected health information (PHI) is secure, implementing a HIPAA-compliant communication platform into your system is a wise decision, and it also improves clinical decision-making, enables communication efficiency, and fosters a better patient-provider relationship.

With the rise of digital communications in medical practice, the security of transmitted patient data is always a concern. HIPAA requires that covered entities and healthcare providers acting on their behalf implement safeguards when storing electronic PHI. It can feel overwhelming, but with the right HIPAA-compliant communication system, it doesn’t have to be, but you still reap the benefits.

Benefits of a HIPAA-Compliant Communication Solution

Your practice can promote growth and cover more ground once you start exploring innovative options to improve your practice’s service. Below are the benefits of implementing a HIPAA-compliant communication software into your system.

The six substantial benefits of a secure HIPAA-compliant communication system include:

1. Safely Share PHI Internally

If you want to optimize clinical decision-making across your entire practice, a HIPAA-compliant communication platform for health systems is essential. Integrating an innovative software solution like Curogram into your system can help your practice quickly communicate important patient health information between providers and other medical staff to make sure everyone has the most updated information at all times.

With faster response times among your team, your practice can provide the most effective care coordination. A communication platform for health systems makes exchanging patient health information simple.

2. Avoid HIPAA Non-Compliance Fines

Any medical practitioners that are not in compliance with HIPAA PHI communication regulations can face steep fines, as well as other sanctions. Making sure that your practice falls within the parameters of HIPAA-compliant messaging helps you avoid unnecessary penalties. 

According to HIPAA regulations, healthcare providers and the technology partners that provide HIPAA-compliant messaging solutions must implement various protections to secure patients' PHI:

  • Policies and procedures: the creation of policies and procedures to achieve compliance with HIPAA standards and requirements.
  • Administrative: includes the development of formal processes to improve internal communication and secure protected health information.
  • Technical: addresses technical requirements, such as transmission security, audit controls, access, and entity authentication that, by design, protect patient information.
  • Physical: marks the security of information technology infrastructure that is used for electronic information systems and electronic communications.

HIPAA’s Security Rule provides a beneficial framework for assessing and mitigating risks connected with transmitting electronic PHI. It does allow covered entities to digitally communicate, such as through text messaging or email, provided they apply reasonable security when doing so and access is restricted to the appropriate parties, and data integrity sustained. According to HIPPA, encryption is a transmittable standard, but since there is no adequate alternative to securing a message, it is a requirement.

3. Improve the Patient Experience

Integrating a patient communication software into your system can highly increase patient experience. Your patients can schedule their appointments easily via online schedule appointments and they can access their care information and other data through a patient portal.

Fit with urgent messaging and service messaging, your team can quickly communicate details and other information to targeted personnel within your practice or escalate messages that need immediate attention to the top of the list. An efficient communication platform enables your practice to quickly communicate any important information that helps your practice accomplish the most with their time.It helps your medical staff reduce phone calls by 50% with the help of 2-way text messaging and reduce no-shows by 75% thanks to automated customizable text or email reminders.

Patient communication software reduces the problems patients used to experience. This innovative software has sped up the process with features like online patient intake forms where patients can complete their form before their consultation starts with you. With a quality communication solution available to your team, your organization will experience new heights in patient engagement, patient satisfaction, practice efficiency, and positive patient outcomes.

4. Streamline Patient Communications

Patient engagement is paramount to a patient’s overall healthcare experience and outcome. The more involved a patient is with their medical provider, the more likely they are to experience a positive health outcome and avoid any red flags to their health.

One of the best ways of strengthening patient engagement is to remain accessible to patients as much as possible. HIPAA-compliant communication software for health systems can empower your practice to take communication further than the patient portal. 

Built with advanced technology, a HIPAA-compliant communication platform like Curogram can connect your patients with your practice at any time. 

For example, with 2-way text messaging, your staff can reach out to patients for appointment reminders, medication questions or refills, or any other reason that concerns their health. Your patients can schedule or reschedule their appointments over text, receive their lab results, and complete electronic patient forms thanks to Curogram’s HIPAA-compliant communication software. The benefits are seemingly endless with its capabilities.

5. Attract More Patients

Online reviews are crucial in healthcare and many patients check a medical practice’s reviews first before they decide whether they will choose that provider or not. With patient communication software like Curogram, you can automatically ask your patients for ratings and feedback. You can send patients a simple one-line text survey to identify your happy patients so they can rate you with 5-stars in one click. You will be quickly notified of unhappy patients so you can prevent that hard to reverse bad review.

With positive online reviews, you will have a great online reputation, and an excellent online reputation means attracting prospective patients while maintaining your patient retention.

6. Reduce Your Risk of Cyber Attacks

It’s a common concern that an instant communication tool in the hands of healthcare providers may lead to practice and patient data being susceptible to cybersecurity risks. With a HIPAA-compliant software solution that offers end-to-end encrypted technology, as Curogram does, medical practitioners never have to worry about patient data falling into the wrong hands or a system breach.

Healthcare providers also gain peace of mind when delivering sensitive PHI thanks to encrypted communication technology. Any message sent to other team members or patients remains protected at all times, allowing for fast and accurate communication of important data.

The benefits of implementing a HIPAA-compliant communication system into your practice are vast, and it is crucial to have it because of HIPAA’s policies and guidelines.

Unleash the benefits of HIPAA-compliant communication solutions with Curogram.

Sharing information within your practice is great as it speeds up processes and clinical decision-making. Communicating via text or email with patients has numerous benefits, too. But the share-ability can lead to bad outcomes as well. If your practice lacks protection against breaches, then cybercriminals can easily infiltrate your health system.

Curogram is a HIPAA-compliant communication software that offers 2-way text messaging for seamless PHI communication with your patients, whether to check in on their health, schedule an appointment, or share lab results and treatment decisions. With Curogram’s platform, you and your patients don’t have to worry about data compromise.