A Marketer's Guide to HIPAA

Avoid HIPAA violations in your healthcare marketing.

Using patient data illegally in your healthcare marketing efforts and campaigns can lead to damaging HIPAA fines. But, not using it at all can potentially keep you from effectively promoting your services to the right audience. A lot of confusion regarding the legal use of patient data exists among healthcare marketing professionals.

Some of your colleagues have posed such questions as:

• “Do we need to get authorizations before we use patients' testimonials in our marketing pieces?”

• “We created a mailing list of all the women who have given birth at our facility in the last 12 months. We plan to send them a satisfaction survey? Does HIPAA allow this?”

• “We sent a letter announcing our new obstetrics practice to a list we purchased from a third party, but some of the people on that list are former patients. Is this a violation?”

We've got the answers to these questions—and more!

Introducing A Marketer's Guide to HIPAA: Resources for Creating Effective and Compliant Marketing. This all-in-one guide explains the parts of HIPAA you need to be aware of, and gives you concrete examples of effective marketing practices that use valuable patient data, but steer clear of HIPAA violations.

This unique resource is the first of its kind—a concise, yet detailed primer for healthcare marketing, communications, and PR professionals who are tired of skirting the use of patient data in their promotions out of fear of violating HIPAA laws, or who simply need to know how and why HIPAA impacts marketing.

Enhance your marketing message with patient data that is HIPAA-compliant.

In practical, easy-to-understand language, A Marketer's Guide to HIPAA offers a breakdown of what HIPAA permits, and the conditions it imposes for using patient information in marketing initiatives. Through real-life scenarios, you'll learn how easy it is to create effective marketing tools and relationships that won't generate costly, reputation-damaging, and time-consuming privacy complaints.

A Marketer's Guide to HIPAA gives you the knowledge you need to use patient information without fear of regulatory noncompliance, and provides alternative marketing methods that steer clear of HIPAA, yet can yield successful results.

Written by a HIPAA law expert and an experienced healthcare marketing consultant , this book also breaks down the Privacy and Security Rule in a practical way so that you will know, with certainty, what marketing programs are permissible under HIPAA.

Turn to this one-of-a-kind resource for

• The definition of marketing, according to HIPAA
• What the limits of patient data use are for marketing and the requirements for getting patient authorization
• Tips to ensure that privacy complaints are handled fairly and in a timely and compliant manner
• Strategies for educating staff about the importance of HIPAA-compliant marketing practices
• A readable HIPAA primer that breaks down how the Privacy and Security rules came about, how they're enforced, and their main principles and requirements

Take a look at our table of contents:

• Chapter 1: HIPAA Basics
  • Administrative Simplification
  • How HIPAA Has Evolved
  • Important Terms
  • Common Elements of HIPAA's Privacy and Security Rules
  • Penalties and Enforcement
• Chapter 2: HIPAA's Privacy Rule
  • Key Privacy Principles
  • Patients' and Plan Members' Rights
  • Pre-emptive State and Federal Privacy Laws
• Chapter 3: HIPAA's Security Rule
  • General Requirements
  • Administrative Safeguards
  • Physical Safeguards
• Chapter 4: How HIPAA Defines and Treats Marketing
  • Not Marketing!
    • Communications from Providers
    • Communications from Health Plans
  • Marketing!
    • Communications from Providers That Require Authorization
    • Communications from a Health Plan That Require Authorization
  • Exceptions to the Authorization Requirement
    • Face-to-face marketing
    • Promotional gifts of nominal value
  • Authorization Requirements
• Chapter 5: Authorization Requirements
  • Sample HIPAA-Compliant Marketing Authorization Form
• Chapter 6: Using Patient Data Under HIPAA
  • Using PHI in Ways That Don't Require Authorization
  • Using PHI in Ways that Do Require Authorization
• Chapter 7: Marketing and Public Relations Options That Avoid HIPAA
  • Marketing Without a Database
  • Database Marketing
• Chapter 8: Strategies for Ensuring Staff Compliance
  • Educate Your Staff
  • Monitor Marketing Activities
  • Work with Your Privacy Officer

Don't take risks with privacy law—learn your rights for using patient data in marketing. Order your copy of A Marketer's Guide to HIPAA today!

About the Authors

Kate Borten, CISSP, CISM, is president of The Marblehead Group, Inc. in Marblehead, MA. Borten provides her clients an unparalleled blend of technical and management expertise, information security knowledge, and the insider's understanding of the world of healthcare. She is a nationally recognized expert and frequent speaker on the topics of HIPAA and health information privacy and security. She is also the author of Guide to HIPAA Security Risk Analysis (2004) and HIPAA Security Made Simple (HCPro, Inc. 2003), a contributor to newsletters on HIPAA privacy and security, and three-year chair of HealthSec, the premiere annual conference on information security in healthcare.

Chris Houchens is a marketing consultant, author, blogger, and the owner of Shotgun Concepts, a marketing firm he founded in 1997 to help businesses get the most out of their marketing efforts. Houchens has spent many years working in the advertising and marketing world, most notably in the broadcasting and healthcare fields. He and his company, Shotgun Concepts (www.shotgunconcepts.com), have been recognized as one of the nation's most remarkable marketing resources in Seth Godin's Bullmarket Directory. In addition, his work has been published in numerous online resources and marketing publications such as BusinessWeek, Direct, OrthoPedics Today, Fast Company, and the Courier-Journal. Chris' blog, the Shotgun Marketing Blog, is read daily by hundreds of subscribers. Visit it today at http://shotgunconcepts.blogspot.com.

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