HIPAA-compliant Marketing Reporting: Why It Matters & How to Get the Best of Both Worlds

Marketers know that measuring campaign outcomes and effectiveness is crucial for determining ROI and justifying continued investment. With so many channels now available, it’s important to track engagement across every touchpoint to optimize results and focus effort and money where it is most impactful.

That’s where marketing and sales reporting comes in: by using cross-platform monitoring technology, marketers can track the impact of campaigns, channels and touchpoints, and follow the customer’s journey down the funnel to the specific desired outcome (conversion, collateral download, sign up, etc.). The beauty of customer journey reporting platforms is that they combine all the metrics for every channel into one dashboard so that marketers can compare and contrast the data across multiple variables for a deeper understanding of the customer journey.

But, this kind of reporting has typically been a challenge for healthcare marketers. Unlike traditional retail marketers, for example, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protections restrict how healthcare customer/patient data can be used, including for patient relationship management and engagement. 

Because of HIPAA, many healthcare marketers believe they simply can’t use these kinds of tools or are skeptical of potential solutions and their HIPAA compliance. But the truth is, HIPAA-compliant advanced marketing and sales reporting is not only possible, it’s also extremely valuable for both cultivating patient loyalty and delivering proactive, preventative care to improve population health and patient outcomes. 

Of course, achieving HIPAA-compliant data protection while still measuring ROI requires the right set of tools. Here are five things to know about finding the best HIPAA-compliant marketing and sales reporting program.

1. Not touching PHI is not enough. As you probably know, HIPAA protects Personal Health Information (PHI)—the specifics of an individual’s past, present or future health, the provision of care to that individual and payment details. Compliant marketing reporting solutions don’t directly engage with PHI (they don’t store or process it), so technically, there’s no worry about potential exposure. However, not touching PHI is not enough: legally you must work with a HIPAA-compliant partner, adhering to the same privacy, security and breach notification standards as a healthcare provider. They should also work under business associate agreements (BAAs) for assurance of operations within a framework that upholds the HIPAA standard.

2. Leverage de-identified health information when possible. De-identified health data is patient data that removes any identifiers that could, under any reasonable basis, link it to an individual. There are no HIPAA restrictions on using de-identified health information, and marketing measurement and reporting doesn’t require any identifying data to still be effective. All we need to know is how the individual came to find you (or “moved through the funnel” in marketing-speak), which we can ascertain by tracking clicks in emails, social posts or on the web to understand the customer journey. In short, we don’t care who they are, just how they moved, and marketing reporting tools can deliver that intelligence to inform future marketing automation strategy. Another option is partnering with a vendor that provides HIPAA-compliant solutions, allowing marketers to adhere to healthcare security regulations.

3. Insist on robust security processes. The HIPAA Security Rule ensures compliance with vendors’ operations, including administrative, technical and physical safeguards required for compliance. That means the best vendors will adhere to strict security management protocols that reduce risks and vulnerabilities, including the ability to add specific data pattern detection and rejection schemes to your platform’s configuration to spot and prevent data leaks. You’ll also want a partner who conducts routine periodic assessments, audits and updates of their protocols, including physical security and access control. Finally, HIPAA-compliant vendors must also have detailed policies and procedures in place to notify the Health and Human Services Secretary about any potential data breach. 

4. Ensure full tech stack coverage. The challenge with reporting on your marketing stack is that it covers so many other platforms—namely cloud and data management solutions. That means any marketing reporting vendor is essentially responsible for ensuring the entire scope of technology their solution touches is covered. Compliant vendors will use cloud services covered by HIPAA-sanctioned business associate agreements and insist that all their vendors and partners, such as data encryption by default (both at rest and in-transit), also operate under these agreements. HIPAA-compliant reporting providers will also act as a “covered entity,” responsible for curing or ending any practice or activity of its business associates that creates PHI data risk.

5. Ask about personnel safeguards. All of the technology in the world can’t ensure HIPAA compliance if the people in the organization aren’t adequately trained, vetted and managed. Be sure the partner you choose is a responsible steward. Having externally audited credentials like ISO 27001 or SOC 2 ensures that data security, privacy protection, risk management, regulatory compliance, and trust and credibility are in place as a foundational part of the vendor’s practices. Qualified vendors should also have strict access management in place, including role-based restrictions that limit users’ access to the minimum amount of data necessary.  A robust workforce training program in security policies and procedures is a must, along with appropriate sanctions for violations.

Effective patient communication is not only a valuable retention strategy but is also important for population health. Reminding patients of appointments, offering wellness benefits, and informing them of opportunities for proactive intervention are all part of a comprehensive, patient-centric approach to healthcare.

But it is critical to ensure that those messages drive the desired action. For healthcare marketers, marketing reporting tools that track the patient journey and measure effectiveness toward achieving engagement while maintaining HIPAA compliance enable higher-value outreach, maximize engagement, and increase ROI.