By Madeline Armstrong
One of the largest barriers in marketing for the healthcare industry is HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Established in 1996, HIPAA is a federal law that protects patient health information from being disclosed or used without the patient’s consent. In other industries, such as auto and home sales, client data and information is not protected. So it can be used to better target an audience and effectively market to them.
“If that [HIPAA] wasn’t in the way, then you could have a lot of cross marketing,” said Justin Knott, CEO of Intrepy Healthcare Marketing. “You could have a lot of visibility into what happens to patients once they get inside the EHR (Electronic Health Record) – what revenue is generated off of them, what services they get.”
This is the kind of visibility that almost every other industry has when it comes to marketing. Although HIPAA is essential for patient privacy, it can be incredibly difficult for healthcare companies to effectively market their services as a result of the law.
“The most serious violations of HIPAA’s marketing prohibitions deal with the sale of patient health information in exchange for marketing opportunities,” said Ashley Algazi, an associate in the Health Services Practice Group with Rivkin Radler.
Now, patient information can be used for marketing purposes, but the patient must provide authorization. “Obtaining a patient authorization for marketing purposes is usually overly burdensome for providers and is often not feasible,” Algazi said.
Algazi also makes the point that HIPAA is very restrictive in terms of what can be marketed when it comes to email, text, social media or any other unsecure platforms. However, she does cite a loophole that providers can take advantage of.
“The Office of Civil Rights provides an acceptable example of a hospital using its patient list to announce the arrival of a new specialty group or the acquisition of new equipment through a general mailing or publication,” Algazi said. “It’s important that the marketing only be used to promote the covered entities’ own products and services.”
According to Knott, clearinghouse data — acquired for Medicare and Medicaid — can often be used for specific things. For instance, providers can access diagnosis codes and those can be used to do hyper-localized targeting for advertising. However, he also believes that using patient data may not be necessary for effective marketing.
Knott said that SEO (search engine optimization) is still one of the most effective marketing tools in the healthcare industry.
“When all the major surgeries, all the treatments and all the problems you’re solving for patients [are] ranking real highly,” he said, “your strong search engine optimization is one of the most effective marketing things that you can do for a practice.”
Knott believes that this is a great tool since patients are more likely to do their own research when it comes to picking their provider. Instead of just accepting a referral from somebody, they will do their own research, most commonly by using a search engine.
Additionally, social media is a great asset for healthcare providers. According to Knott, it is important for companies to get their physicians on video promoting the practice, establishing themselves on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. This is how the company will begin building a following of current and potential patients. Although HIPAA is a barrier when it comes to using patient data to market, there are some loopholes and ways around it as well as alternative marketing options that may be just as effective. These include using patient data to market a covered entity’s own product and services and focusing on clearinghouse data by using diagnosis codes to target specific audiences. Alternative marketing options, as Knott says, can include focusing on SEO and social media to build an audience and a following of potential clients.
