5 Keys for Medical Website Hosting – Part 2: HIPAA Compliance

Gretchen Kalthoff

Gretchen Kalthoff

Posted on March 01, 2016

hipaa compliance
When it comes to web hosting, it is crucial that you select a web hosting company that not only ensures your healthcare organization’s website is HIPAA compliant and 100% secure, but also provides every necessary feature for protecting patients’ personal health information (PHI).
In part one of our five part medical website hosting series, the importance of secure web hosting was highlighted. Part two focuses on why it is necessary for web hosting to be HIPAA-compliant.

2. HIPAA Compliance

While there is no such thing as HIPAA certification, Medical Web Experts collaborates with HITRUST and follows best practices to ensure that our web hosting is HIPAA-compliant. It’s important to have a plan to meet HIPAA guidelines in your practice, especially because website forms are at a high risk when it comes to HIPAA. The concern is that patients will use contact forms to send consultation-related messages to the practice or organization, which then have a risk of being intercepted or stored in an unsecure database. It is imperative that you follow certain steps to keep your email communication with your patients secure and HIPAA compliant. Our email hosting meets the requirements set forth by HIPAA for Email Archiving and Security because it includes:

  • HIPAA-compliant email systems with 128-bit encryption
  • HIPAA-friendly “Contact Us” forms for your website
  • CAPTCHA login screen security
  • McAfee Site Secure website monitoring
  • Website auditing for security flaws

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For web hosting, we make reasonable efforts to reduce risks by encrypting websites with SSL certificates and using proper firewalls to protect information. We invest our focus on avoiding high-risk issues to meet HIPAA guidelines and protect your healthcare organization from problems, such as data loss and lawsuits. We also implement a daily backup system and secondary weekly or monthly backup system because, under HIPAA, a backup plan is required in order to protect information in case of an emergency.
Selecting a medical website hosting company that ensures HIPAA compliance will benefit your healthcare organization’s online presence and protect patient information. The benefits of website uptime are discussed in part three of our web hosting series.
View the complete web hosting article series here:

Are you interested in medical website hosting for your healthcare organization? Medical Web Experts currently manages nearly 20 servers for our client’s websites, with 24/7 response to emergency issues and real-time server monitoring. Contact us here, or call 1-866-932-9944, to learn more.


Gretchen Kalthoff

Gretchen Kalthoff

Gretchen Kalthoff is a writer and marketing specialist for MWE. She is an expert in healthcare marketing and health IT with a special interest in increasing patient engagement through social media and healthcare technologies.

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