Healthcare providers offering telemedicine services should ensure that their vendors are HIPAA compliant. By ensuring that patient data remains secure, practitioners can steer away from legal trouble and protect patient privacy.
This article lists vendors that meet the criteria of HIPAA compliance in telemedicine services.
5 Top HIPAA-Compliant Telemedicine Platforms:
Importance of HIPAA Compliance in Telemedicine
HIPAA Rules for telehealth technology emphasize that covered healthcare providers and health plans must use technology vendors that comply with HIPAA guidelines. These vendors should also be able to enter into a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with the provider when offering telemedicine or remote communication products.
1. Doxy.me
One of the more popular HIPAA-compliant telemedicine platforms, Doxy.me, offers a simple and accessible platform for patients and healthcare professionals. You can use it on desktop or mobile devices without downloading any software.
Staying true to its promise of making telemedicine available to everyone, Doxy.me offers a HIPAA-compliant free plan. The plan includes a virtual waiting room, unlimited call minutes, and a free BAA. That’s pretty generous for something that costs $0.
Top features:
- Free plan with unlimited call minutes
- Customizable waiting rooms
- Group calls
- Background effects
- Patient queue
- Custom branding
- Patient transfer
- Whiteboard
- Real-time interpreter
- Priority support
- File transfer
Price:
- Free: $0/year
- Pro: $348/year
- Clinic: $504/provider/year
- Enterprise: Custom
2. Spruce Health
Spruce Health is an all-in-one telemedicine platform for HIPAA compliance, offering call, text, voicemail, internet fax, and video services. It’s built for doctors’ offices with high call volumes and those that could benefit from automated workflows.
According to reviews, Spruce Health suits solo medical practice or larger clinics. It separates personal calls from business calls, so medical practitioners can choose to answer calls or not. Healthcare providers can also keep track of scheduling, take internal notes, and stay mobile during telehealth consultations.
Top features:
- Secure video visits and text messaging
- Internal notes
- Saved messages and auto replies
- Team collaboration with team inbox, paging, and contact sharing
- Phone trees for call routing to individuals or teams
- Call documentation
- Professional phone lines with voicemail transcription
- Virtual fax services from mobile phones or web browsers
Price:
- Basic: $24/user/month
- Communicator: $49/user/month
- Free trial: 14 days
3. ContinuousCare
The digital health platform ContinuousCare uses HIPAA-compliant services from Amazon Web Services (AWS), which are housed in US data centers. It also secured a BAA from AWS to ensure it meets HIPAA physical safeguards.
ContinuousCare offers flexible prices and features for clinics, teams, large hospitals, and enterprises. It offers basic features such as a patient portal and website, notifications, and appointment management services. You can use more advanced features with an Enterprise plan.
Top features:
- White-label platform, so you can apply your own branding
- Unlimited patient records
- Custom patient portal and email domain
- Notes and Prescriptions
- Mobile apps
- Video, text, and remote patient monitoring (RPM) telemedicine services
- Multi-language support
- Dedicated data storage
Price:
- Team: $16/month/5 users
- Business: $82/month/25 users
- Enterprise: Contact sales
- Free trial: 14 days
4. Zoom for Healthcare
Zoom gained popularity as a user-friendly video conferencing platform during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing its application in health care, the company launched a Zoom for Healthcare product that meets HIPAA compliance.
Zoom for Healthcare engaged a third party to review its safeguards to secure PHI. It also executes a BAA for healthcare organizations, enabling them to follow HIPAA rules. Zoom for Healthcare account holders can obtain a Zoom BAA when they search for the available plans and products and click enable BAA.
Top features:
- Up to 30 hours per meeting
- Zoom AI Companion
- Automated captions
- 100 or unlimited attendees per meeting
- Whiteboard
- Team chat
- Cloud storage
- Free premium apps for up to a year
- Zoom Rooms
- Zoom Phone – Unlimited regional or full-featured PBX
Price:
- Pro: $149/year/user
- Business plans and Enterprise: Contact sales
5. Klara
Klara rounds off our list of HIPAA-compliant telemedicine services. The platform uses AES-128/SSL encryption to protect information. It also secured a BAA with its web hosting provider, making sure that PHI remains safe online. Moreover, Klara offers a BAA to healthcare providers who must comply with HIPAA.
The telemedicine service also has an assistant feature that acts as a receptionist. Its features allow patients to reach their healthcare providers through various communication methods: website, voicemail, web chat, video calls, or directly through the Klara platform.
Top features:
- Video streaming on any device
- Secure messaging and file sharing
- Virtual waiting room
- Screen sharing
- Integration with top EHRs and EMRs, including NextGen, Nextech, Meditab, and more
- Google Chrome extension
- Message routing
- Shared inboxes
- Voicemail transcriptions
Price:
- Contact sales
HHS Guidance for Providers Using HIPAA Telemedicine Services
The Office of Civil Services (OCR) under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a resource for healthcare providers focused on educating patients on the risks of telemedicine. The document also explains how to reduce these risks.
To summarize, providers should:
- Consider the needs of individuals with disabilities and those who have limited English proficiency
- Explain what telemedicine is and the remote communication technologies they use before each session
- Explain the significance of health information privacy and security
- Inform patients about the risks associated with telemedicine
- Encourage patients to ask questions and provide information on how they can be contacted to avoid phishing scams
- Disclose vendor names, privacy practices, and security safeguards if using a telemedicine vendor
- Inform patients of their right to file privacy complaints through the OCR complaint portal
By choosing HIPAA-compliant software and carefully following regulation guidelines, healthcare providers can avoid costly fines and penalties associated with non-compliance.
