When running a private practice, it’s important that you do everything in your power to maintain privacy compliant when sharing or receiving personal information. And this includes when transmitting information via email. This is where Hushmail comes in.
Hushmail is a well-known email software for private practice owners and healthcare professionals that’s HIPAA compliant.
But is Hushmail worth it?
This article is a Hushmail review with pros and cons of its email service so you can determine is Hushmail worth it for your private practice.
What is Hushmail?
Hushmail is an email service provider that allows you to send encrypted emails so that you can send and obtain confidential information to and from your clients. Hushmail has several email and pricing plans to choose from which includes the Healthcare, Small Business, Law and Personal email plans. However, for therapists and private practice owners, the Healthcare Hushmail is the best fit as it is HIPAA complaint.
Pros to Using Hushmail
There are several pros to using Hushmail as your main email provider from HIPAA compliance to smartphone capability. Let’s discuss each one so you can determine is Hushmail worth it:
HIPAA Compliant
The first and (most) important feature that Hushmail offers is HIPAA compliance. Unlike many other email providers, Hushmail has built-in features that are designed to help maintain clients privacy when transmitting emails. As a private practice owner, you have an obligation to ensure that communication with your clients remain confidential. By having a HIPAA compliant email provider, like Hushmail, you can be confident that clients’ confidentiality and privacy is maintained. Hushmail has two great features that support HIPAA compliance: encrypted emails and secure web forms.
Sending Encrypted Emails
One of the key features that Hushmail offers in order to maintain privacy is the ability to send encrypted emails to your clients. Whether you’re communicating with a client for the first time or you’re booking your next appointment, ensuring that only your client receives and reads your emails is important.
When you use Hushmail’s encrypted email feature, clients will receive an email from Hushmail before they can access your email that tells your client that you are sending an secure email. It will provide your client with your name and email and a button that states “Read Your Secure Message.” When your client clicks on the button, they will be prompted to sign into their Hushmail account so that they can read your message. If you’re client has never used Hushmail before, they’ll be prompted to sign up for an account before they can read your email. This helps protect the content of your message from anyone who might have access to your client’s email.
The great thing about Hushmail is that you have the capability to turn on and off encryption. So, if you want to send a non-confidential email, the recipient won’t be prompted to sign-up or sign into a Hushmail account in order to read your email. You can easily turn on and off encryption by clicking the encryption toggle from your message center.
Sending Secure Web Forms
Another great feature Hushmail offers is secure web forms that you can send to your clients. Secure web forms can include consent forms, intakes or mental health questionnaires. This feature is especially helpful if your practice management software doesn’t have the capability of collecting your client’s intake information digitally.
To use the secure web forms feature, you simply create a form by using Hushmail’s customizable drag-and-drop form builder. Hushmail also has a library of premade templates so you never have to start off from scratch. When your clients receive your secure web form, they complete it via a password protected web page. And then you receive their information in a PDF document to a secure inbox so that you can print for your client’s paper file or upload to your practice management software.
Use Own Domain Name
Another perk to having a Hushmail account is that you can either have an email with your website domain name in it like info@kayladas.com. Or if you don’t yet have a website, you can use Hushmail’s domain. So, you don’t necessarily have to have a website to be able to use Hushmail as your email provider.
Smartphone App
When on the go, you can also easily access your Hushmail account through the Hushmail app on your smartphone. I also like the extra sign in protection when using the Hushmail app. If you use the Face ID feature to sign into your Hushmail account, you won’t be prompted to type in your smartphone passcode after two failed Face ID attempts. If your smartphone Face ID doesn’t recognize you, it will ask you to re-enter your email and password. This layer of protection helps maintain your clients’ confidentiality, especially if you share your phone with others.
Cons to Using Hushmail
Although, Hushmail has many pros, like any email provider there are also cons to consider before determining is Hushmail worth it for your practice.
Recipients Need to Sign in to Read Message
As mentioned previously, when you send encrypted emails to your clients they will need to sign up and sign into a Hushmail account to read your message. This extra step may be considered an inconvenience for some clients and they may choose not read your message. When appropriate, you can turn off encryption when communicating non-confidential information to decrease unopen rates. It may also be helpful to inform clients that when they communicate with you via email, they will go through an extra step to access your message and explain how it protects their personal information.
Cost
When signing up for Hushmail you’ll need to choose one of their pricing plans and Hushmail does not offer a free email plan. Hushmail offers three pricing plans under the Healthcare plan. All plans provide HIPAA compliant service but depending on the pricing plan that you choose some features are not included. For example, the Hushmail’s Starter pricing plan does not include secure web forms but the Recommended or Custom pricing plans do. If you do not need secure web forms, the Starter plan is quite affordable even if you’re a therapist just starting out in private practice.
Not Necessarily Compliant with All Countries Privacy Laws
Although Hushmail is HIPAA compliant, it’s not necessarily compliant with privacy legislation in all countries. HIPAA is the privacy legislation in the United States (US), but if you reside outside of the US, you’ll need to ensure that Hushmail is compliant with your country’s privacy legislation. If you reside outside of the US, Hushmail will sign an information manager agreement (IMA) acknowledging its responsibility to keep your email correspondences secure.
If you’re a Canadian therapist, Hushmail has a great article about Canadian privacy compliance and IMA’s when using Hushmail. Check out Hushmail’s article, A Guide to Secure, Compliant Email for Healthcare Practitioners in Canada to determine is Hushmail worth it for your Canadian practice.
Conclusion
For this Hushmail review, I recommend Hushmail for its encryption capabilities alone. There are few email providers out there that provide privacy compliant email services and Hushmail works hard at ensuring that your email communications are secure. As someone who has been on both ends of sending and receiving Hushmail emails, my experience has been very positive from email encryption to a user-friendly platform. As a private practitioner, you have an obligation to maintain your client’s privacy when using email. So, by using the Hushmail email service you can be confident that your clients’ information is secure from the very first email.
Hushmail Discount Code
Because I loved my experience as a Hushmail user, I became an affiliate so that I can share my experience with other practice owners, like you. As an affiliate, I have access to an exclusive Hushmail discount code that gives you 10% off your Hushmail email when you sign up for the monthly or annual plan.
Is Hushmail worth it?
To sign up and receive your 10% discount for Hushmail click here and your discount will be added automatically at cart.
Disclaimer
Any links, referrals or promotional codes listed in this article may be affiliate links where Evaspare Inc. may receive monetary compensation, at no extra cost you, when you click or use links or promotional codes.
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