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HubSpot in Healthcare Marketing: How to Make HubSpot Work for HIPAA-Compliant Organizations

By Nate Riggs on June 21, 2017 |

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Imagine this: 

You're a young, millennial (*gasp*, a millennial with a job? Just stay with me here ;) ) marketer who gets hired into a healthcare organization. Your new employer is understaffed, broke, and passionate. They have the knowledge to create amazing content and the drive to put in long hours to reach their goals.

These goals included:

You happen to be one of the few college grads who was able to bridge the digital skills gap and take a few classes in digital marketing. You know this org is a text-book use-case for Inbound Marketing and HubSpot. The catch? HIPAA compliance.

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. A US law that put extra safety measures in place to protect a patient's privacy in regards to their healthcare provider.

What it means is that if a healthcare organization's technology, their email account for example, were to be hacked, no Patient Health Information (PHI) should be at risk. Hackers should not be able to access an organization's patient list with contact information, or be able to see which patients received which services at that organization (Medicinenet.com).

All technology that an organization uses that will hold PHI must be HIPAA-compliant. Unfortunately, HubSpot is not. But it's okay, all is not lost. There are a few steps you can take to pull your organization into the marketing 21st-century.


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How To Use HubSpot in Healthcare

Step 1: Are You Designated?

Figure out if you're a 501(c)3. Like, now. If your organization has a 501(c)3 designation, what that means in that the government recognizes them as a non-profit. Most tech companies will offer a discount for 501(c)3 holders as well as a tax exemption. 

hubspot salesforce integration

Step 2: Find a CRM Integration that is HIPAA-Compliant

This brings us to our next point. 

Salesforce has a HIPAA-compliant cloud CRM offering for non-profits, a native integration with HubSpot, and is one of those companies that will offer a discount. Actually, it offers more than a discount. Salesforce will give you the first 10 seats of one of its Enterprise license for free. Each additional seat is also discounted, but trust me, 10 free seats goes a loooonnnng way.

The actual set-up can be a bit complex, and Salesforce only sells the software, they don't do much in terms of support. They count on third-party developers for the support piece of things. For a run-of-the mill implementation, you shouldn't need to hire anyone to help, especially with HubSpot's native integration.

This is where you need to get VERY careful about what information is held in HubSpot. The majority of your data will live in Salesforce, just come to terms with that. 

  • Use embeddable Web-to-Lead forms from Salesforce for all forms on your website that might contain PHI. Limit what information from these forms are synced with HubSpot. HubSpot should never know what services the patient, or prospective patient, was interested in, or whether they became a patient at all. 
  • Do not use any synced information from Salesforce in any HubSpot marketing actions. Basically, if any contact property came from Salesforce, it's shouldn't be used in HubSpot. You shouldn't have any HubSpot lists segmented by Salesforce information, you shouldn't be sending out any email marketing based off of information collected from a Salesforce form, etc. You'll be tempted. Don't do it.
  • When in doubt, just don't. Sure, it would be great to create a Smart CTA based on the fact that someone identified that they had diabetes on one of your Salesforce forms. That's exactly what HubSpot teaches us to do! But in the end, the two additional patients you gain from that personalization are not worth the gigantic lawsuit that will shut your organization down. When you're not sure, just don't do it.

Step 3: Go Crazy On The HubSpot Functionality You CAN Use

Yes, you're going to have to peace-out the personalization tokens on website pages. But you can schedule out all of the social media posts you want, write 5 blog posts a week, and send out as many monthly email newsletters as you want. 

The healthcare industry in general is still super behind when it comes to interacting with people online. Primarily because it's really scary when you have HIPAA hovering over your shoulder. 

But there's still a lot we can do that doesn't even nudge the edge of the HIPAA bubble. And just because the industry hasn't kept up with digital trends doesn't mean that those who use healthcare services haven't.

Your prospective patients and current patients both will appreciate when you post helpful articles to social media about how to stay healthy during the upcoming flu season. As long as HubSpot doesn't know which is which, you're in the clear.


Just because you're restricted by HIPAA regulations doesn't mean that you can't use HubSpot in healthcare organizations. It does mean that you have to be very careful, and very aware, of how you use it.

Disclaimer: While what the digital marketing firm NR Media Group does with it's healthcare clients has been reviewed by a legal expert, the content above has not been. It is solely meant to be taken as a suggestion. NR Media Group is not liable for any legal repercussions that an organization may face by following the above content.

HubSpot in Healthcare | NR Media Group

HubSpot

Nate Riggs

Written by Nate Riggs

Nate Riggs is the Founder and CEO of NR Media Group, a Certified HubSpot Partner and inbound consulting firm. He leads a team of experienced strategists, content marketers, creatives and technologists that help organizations deploy and use HubSpot’s marketing, sales, and service software to operate more efficiently and accelerate growth. Nate regularly presents keynotes and workshops at top industry conferences like INBOUND, Content Marketing World and Oracle’s Modern CX. In 2017, Nate was recognized by HubSpot for his contributions to the development of the HubSpot Education Partner Program. Nate regularly presents keynotes and workshops at top industry conferences like INBOUND, Content Marketing World and Oracle’s Modern CX. In 2017, Nate was recognized by HubSpot for his contributions to the development of the HubSpot Education Partner Program.
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