HIPAA Email Disclaimer and How Doctors/Nurses add it in their Email Signatures : Email communication is one of the most popular ways professionals and businesses use in communicating with clients. In fact, 93% of adult patients prefer to communicate with their physicians with email communication.
As email communication becomes a widely preferred means of communication, the need for email signature also becomes an important part of email communication.
Email signature is a block of information that includes the contact details and other important information of the sender, including HIPAA disclaimer that is appended to the footer of an email.
Why should an email signature include a HIPAA disclaimer?
If you want to add a HIPAA email disclaimer to your outgoing emails, it means that you’re either a medical provider, an organization in the healthcare industry, or a business owner.
Regardless of what kind of company you are operating, it is important that you secure the protected health information (PHI) of patients that you handle on a daily basis.
Email communication is not secured. The data sent between the sender and recipient during email communication isn’t inherently encrypted among some of the most popular email service providers.
You can be fined if the data of your patients get into the wrong hands. If you send the PHI of a patient through an unencrypted email service provider, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would consider this act as a willful, negligent breach. You could face a fine of about $1,000 and $50,000 for this act.
Yes, communicating with your patients via email increases your engagement but you need to protect yourself from incurring huge fines.
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