I am a doctor in a local community hospital, and recently one of my new patients who is an IT Security specialist, pointed out a possible HIPAA violation to me.

Sometimes, I will send a text to another doctor I consult with and refer patients to, and in that text I send him some basic patient info, symptoms and the diagnosis I am thinking of. My patient asked me about it, and I told him.

He said that it is a possible HIPAA violation of patent confidentiality, and he knows of several large lawsuits against hospitals and doctor for breech of patient confidentiality, all because of information sent by phone text.

He says that the texts stay on the phone, and therefore if the phone is lost or hacked, then the patient information is no longer secured and considered released to the public.

Texting patient information allows doctors to handle more patients, and serve them better. I asked him how doctors can send texts that are HIPAA compliant.

He said that TigerText is HIPAA compliant since text messages are deleted after a short period of time ( or after reading or ???), and that it is about $10 a month which is very cost effective compared to legal action for violating patient confidentiality.

I looked on line and it does look like Tigertext is the only way to do HIPAA complaint text.

What I want to know is if anyone else has experience with this?

$10 a month for TigerText is affordable, but I want to know if it works even with non-TigerText customers?

http://www.tigertext.com/business/healthcare/

Ok, this probably shows how cynical I've become, but... are you sure you're not just trying to market this?? This seems like an odd context for this topic....

I always call my consulting physicians and speak in person. No HIPPA violations there! I am the compliance officer for my group, and I am pretty sure Tigertext is still a HIPPA violation if the texts are stored for any amount of time. Do you have a compliance officer for your group you could ask or have a compliance lawyer you retain?

Hi Amma, no, I really am trying to better wrap my mind around this. Hi clee, I think it deletes them or locks them so no one can see them, but on any note, I am not too sure who to ask. I wasn't told about who to consult for such questions, but perhaps I should look into that more as well. Thank you!