Show Notes

Welcome back to The Designer Practice Podcast, and I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, Anabeli Jackson, marketing manager at Hushmail, will discuss Hushmail’s email and form encryption for confidential client communication.

Hi, Anabeli, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Hi Kayla. Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to be here and discuss protecting client communication, which is very important for therapy practices. So thank you for having me.

Absolutely. Anabeli, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself, where you’re from, and tell us a little bit about you.

Yeah, like you said, I’m Anabeli Jackson. I’m the marketing manager at Hushmail, and I’ve been working here since 2014. And my work focuses a lot on helping therapists understand secure communication in a way that’s simple and manageable.

I spend a lot of time translating compliance and encryption into plain language. So small solo practices can feel confident without feeling overwhelmed by technology.

Amazing. And yeah, sometimes when we think about these more kind of technical things into our practice, it can get overwhelming or confusing. Having someone like you break it down can be really helpful for many practitioners and that’s why I’m really glad that we’re talking about this today because it is a conversation that I think that we don’t really talk about enough in our practices.

So just for any listener who may not be familiar with Hushmail, what is it and who is it designed for?

Hushmail is a secure email and web forms provider, and we’ve been built specifically for healthcare professionals, but especially therapists, mental health practitioners. So it allows practitioners to send encrypted emails to collect information securely through forms, and gather legally binding e-signatures, and all in one place.

So it’s designed for practitioners who handle sensitive client information, but they don’t want any complicated systems because most of our users are solo or small practices and they deeply care about the clients, but they don’t really consider themselves tech experts. So we try to make security feel accessible for them.

Absolutely. And so we have a worldwide audience, but majority of our audiences from Canada and the US. Can you tell us a little bit about Hushmail kind of its process and, is it compliant in Canada and the US?

Absolutely. We are compliant with HIPAA regulations in the US as well as PIPEDA regulations in Canada and all the provincial laws. So in Canada we have the federal regulation, which is PIPEDA, which is for any business that has client information, but we also have provincial laws and some specific for healthcare, which we are also compliant with.

That’s really helpful. And for Canadian listeners who may have heard of Hushmail in the past, Hushmail is actually Canadian. You are in Vancouver, right?

 Yes, we are absolutely Canadian. So our headquarters are in Vancouver, and all our data servers are based in Canada, which is important for Canadian listeners because some of these healthcare regulations require the data to stay in Canada. So it’s relevant for our Canadian listeners.

Absolutely. So why is regular email and standard contact forms risky for therapists and therapy practices?

Most regular email providers and standard website contact forms. They’re not built for healthcare. What happens is they may use encryption while the message is being sent, which is good, but once that message lands, the protection ends. So then from there you have gaps because that clear text email is sitting on an inbox and you don’t know if it’s a shared family email account. If the device is password protected. If the phone gets lost, all that sensitive information could be exposed.

And from a risk management perspective, therapists are responsible for safeguarding PHI. And if communication lives in unsecured inboxes they lose some control over that storage access history.

PHI is protected health information. But I’m talking about all these sensitive information. So while these messages are being sent, is microseconds versus the entire life of that message sitting on an inbox.

So this is why regular email, regular standard contact forms, don’t cut it because it’s risky. It’s just protected in that very small moment of their life cycle when it’s being moved.

This makes me think of when clients might be even using their work emails. And while we as practitioners can’t control which email a client decides to use. What happens is, as you’re mentioning, when someone is using a regular email or a standard contact form it goes and lands into that work email. More times than not, and I would say most of the time, a work email is the property of the organization, not the property of the individual. So what then happens is that if a person leaves an organization, or maybe a boss or a colleague for, work related purposes or accessing that email. Now they’re seeing this personal email into that inbox, and I think that’s a really good example of kind of what you’re talking about.

And on the other side as well, if you are a mental health practitioner, you may be dealing with sensitive situations where there’s abuse and you don’t know if your client email is monitored or there could be several situations where it’s just not appropriate.

I couldn’t agree more. So how does Hushmail help protect sensitive client information, especially during the first point of contact, say a website form or an intake.

I think one important thing to understand here is that protected health information applies even before someone becomes a client. PHI is information about an individual’s past, present, or future healthcare treatment, and the keyword here is future. So even an inquiry about booking therapy is considered protected. So this is why a generic contact form will not cut it.

Practitioners can use a form that’s designed to protect the sensitive information, so when a prospective client submits that form, then the information comes encrypted, is delivered securely, and from there, the conversation can continue in this protected environment.

So this matters because this first message can be vulnerable. Like they can say, I’m struggling with anxiety, I’m struggling with suicidal thoughts. So it’s very confidential. So using a secure form actually signals professionalism and care from the very beginning.

So what should practice owners look for when choosing secure email or form tools for their practice?

I would suggest four things. First, you want to look for the built-in encryption. So I wouldn’t rely on add-ons or complicated technical workarounds. If you have it on as a built-in feature, that’s going to make it easier. In Hushmail, you just toggle the encryption on whenever you need to send something secure.

Second, I would go for ease of use. Because if the therapist or their clients find it confusing, then it’s not going to be used consistently, which will create gaps in the security.

I would say look for a company that’s focused on healthcare because your provider should understand healthcare privacy, not just general business communication.

And I would say customer care. I see for our audience that are not tech savvy, having someone to guide them through the setup and understand their requirements and, help them connect their domains or embed their forms, I think it’s very important. I feel some of the bigger companies have not been built for healthcare. it was just an afterthought. Reaching their customer support is very hard, so I think that side of things is also very important.

So I think just in general, security should enhance your practice, not disrupt it.

I love that. And this actually brings me to my next question. How can therapists balance say privacy requirements, so privacy laws with a good client experience when they are using such a platform?

This is a very good question because many people assume that secure communication is very complicated. Or it’s very intimidating for clients. And in reality with Hushmail, it’s actually very simple. So a therapist sends a secure message and the clients receive them In the regular email, they received an email notification and it has a little link that says, read your secure message from your practitioner.

So they click the link and it opens the secure space. And from there they can sign in using their existing Google, Microsoft, Apple account. Most people already have one of those. They don’t need to create a brand new password unless they want to. And then once they’re sign in, they can read the message, they can reply there from the secure space. They can attach documents, they can complete and sign forms. It’s very intuitive. It feels a familiar inbox. So while there is this small extra step, I think it’s quick. It’s a small, that protects something very important, which is their information.

So when therapists can explain that clearly to clients, it can actually build trust.

And I think especially since the pandemic, I know that even when I go to my own physician’s office or anywhere many clinics are now using encryption. So it’s very likely that many of our clients, if they’ve ever received emails from any type of healthcare provider, they’re familiar with encryption. So this might not be the first time that they have had encryption or have used encryption. And if it is, of course, providing that education on what it is and why we do it. But I know for me, any healthcare practitioner, if they’re going to send me an email, has encryption built into their system.

Yes, many people will have encountered these type of portals where they go in, they sign in and they receive and read their messages, their intake forms they submitted in there, like there are electronic health record management systems they’re called the EHRs, right? And those have these similar idea where you sign in to a portal, you have your messages there. So yes, people will be familiar with some of it by now.

Absolutely. So Anabeli, if a therapist is interested in Hushmail as their email provider, what can they expect when they sign up? What’s the process? What does it look like? How can they set up their email?

All right, so when you sign up for Hushmail. It’s a straightforward setup process, so you will choose your healthcare plan. You set up your email address, you can connect your custom domain if you have it, and from there you can start sending secure email and building secure forms right away. There are no extra plugins or integrations you need to do. And our team is very experienced in supporting healthcare professionals.

So you can reach us if you need any help on building your forms, setting up your domain, that part is actually the most technical complicated part where if you want to use your own domain name, where you have mypractice.com, that’s like the most technical part that they will encounter in the process.

But we have a team standing by ready to help and make the transition smooth and bringing all your email into Hushmail It’s a simple, straightforward process.

Amazing. So if you’re interested in signing up for Hushmail, head to kayladas.com/hushmail

That’s kayladas.com/hushmail

Or simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Also, if you sign up from our link, you’ll receive a full month free of your new Hushmail account.

Anabeli, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss Hushmail email and form encryption for confidential client communication.

 Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

And thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by Denis Pavlov Music from Pixabay

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