Medical professionals and facilities of all sizes often choose to have a website to help current and potential clients learn more about them. The list of potential website hosting companies is very diverse and very long, making it difficult to choose the best one for your organization. SEE ALSO: How to Make Sure You Have a HIPAA Compliant Website Over five years ago, we discovered many of our dental clients were using a company called Bluehost for hosting their business email. Then, and now, we thought we'd give them a closer look.
What is Bluehost?
The Utah-based web host has over 700 employees and is home to over two million domains, making it one of the 20 largest such firms in the U.S. Bluehost was acquired by Endurance International Group in 2010, which also owns the email marketing platform Constant Contact and fellow webhost Hostgator. Bluehost offers a variety of hosting solutions, ranging from shared to dedicated hosting, WordPress hosting, and e-commerce hosting. The company is among a few web hosts recommended by WordPress.org to host WordPress websites.
Is Bluehost HIPAA compliant?
No. We were delighted to find the simple and straightforward answer to this question on Bluehost's HIPAA disclaimer page. In fact, the assertion is also part of Bluehost's overall Acceptable Use Policy, which actually lists "' protected health information' as defined under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ('HIPAA')" under "Prohibited Use or Content," alongside pyramid schemes, computer viruses, and sex trafficking. "You may NOT use our Services for hosting 'protected health information' under the federal HIPAA law and related regulations," the company says. "We do not sign business associate agreements."