Purchasing HIPAA Compliant Analytics Solutions Through an Agency

Introduction

If you are a small provider group looking to adopt HIPAA compliant analytics, you may be facing a rather large bill that you hadn’t budgeted for. The aim of this article is to share another option that may be available if you find the right agency partner. 

Do I need HIPAA Compliant Analytics or a CDP?

We wrote about this question in a recent blog post found here. 

The short answer: If you do not need remarketing efforts, you should be fine with a standalone HIPAA compliant analytics solution rather than a CDP set up.

Agency Considerations for Purchasing HIPAA Compliant Analytics Solutions

When exploring HIPAA-compliant analytics solutions, healthcare organizations may consider partnering with healthcare-focused agency providers.

In this model, organizations essentially “rent” a portion of the agency’s allotted billing amount for the analytics solution. This arrangement is similar to renting web server space for a website, where organizations are allocated a specific portion of the agency’s plan for contact storage and event firing. This setup is typically only suitable for Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) and may not be suitable for general analytics solutions.

This agency partnership approach can be particularly beneficial for organizations that fall into an awkward size range, typically between 5 and 30 affiliate brands under management. These organizations may be too large to rely solely on basic analytics tools but not large enough to justify the full cost of a comprehensive HIPAA-compliant solution. In such cases, seeking an agency partner can help determine if the organization can obtain the necessary analytics capabilities at a significantly lower cost compared to purchasing their own dedicated account.

When considering an agency partnership, healthcare organizations should carefully evaluate the following factors:

1. HIPAA Compliance: Ensure that the agency partner and the analytics solution they offer fully comply with HIPAA regulations, including the signing of a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).
2. Data Ownership and Access: Clearly define data ownership and access rights in the partnership agreement, ensuring that the healthcare organization maintains control over their data and can access it as needed.
3. Customization and Scalability: Assess whether the agency’s analytics solution can be customized to meet the organization’s specific requirements and if it can scale as the organization grows. Most CDP providers will not allow your organization to stay with an agency set up as you grow larger. Rest assured, your data will scale just fine if you enter in through an agency set up. 
4. Support and Expertise: Evaluate the level of support and expertise provided by the agency partner, including their knowledge of HIPAA regulations and their ability to assist with implementation, training, and ongoing maintenance.

Risk of Being Stuck with an Agency

If the concern is that you’ll outgrow the agency, a lot of the HIPAA compliant analytics providers will make you upgrade to your own account anyways if you outgrow the agency’s model. Most agencies can provide analytics without you having to use their services. At the end of the day, it’s your data, and they’re just helping facilitate an odd gap in the market. 

Summary

Currently, Carenetic does not offer an agency agreement for purchasing HIPAA compliant analytics but we know several preferred partners that do and would be happy to make an introduction. This could change for us in the future as the landscape changes but for now, we hope this article has been informative to provide a creative way that you could get complaint analytics set up for your organization.