Since Paubox is a Business Associate to thousands of customers, we’ve been wondering if they are able to use LiveChat in a HIPAA compliant manner. In fact, we've noticed more vendors, customers, and prospects asking about HIPAA compliant services. This is especially true now as we see an accelerated, long overdue adoption of digital transformation in healthcare.
We know the HIPAA industry is vast, so we can empathize with just how many people need to use cloud services in this sector. Today we will determine if LiveChat offers HIPAA compliant service or not.
LiveChat
LiveChat is a cloud-based customer service platform with online chat, help desk software, and web analytics. LiveChat was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Boston, MA.
What is a Business Associate?
A Business Associate is a person or company that performs certain functions or activities that involve the use or disclosure of protected health information (PHI) for a Covered Entity. In a nutshell, the role of a Business Associate is to help Covered Entities comply with the HIPAA Privacy Rule
Read full article: What does it mean to be a Business Associate?
Business Associate Agreement provisions
If a Business Associate provides services to a Covered Entity, then a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) must be in place. A BAA is a written contract between a Covered Entity and a Business Associate and is required by law for HIPAA compliance. At a minimum, a Business Associate Agreement contains 10 provisions.
Read full article: Business Associate Agreement Provisions
LiveChat and the Business Associate Agreement
We checked the LiveChat site for mention of their ability to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). We found the following pages:
On those pages, we can see that:
- LiveChat is willing to sign a BAA with its customers, provided they select their Enterprise plan
- LiveChat details a 4 step process to achieving HIPAA compliance on their platform
Does LiveChat offer HIPAA Compliant Service?
The Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is a key component to HIPAA compliance between a Covered Entity and a Business Associate. We were able to learn the following about LiveChat about their ability to be considered a HIPAA compliant solution:
- Freshdesk states they are willing to sign a BAA with their customers, as long as they choose an Enterprise plan
- There is a four step process that needs to be followed in order to establish HIPAA compliance on the LiveChat platform
Conclusion: LiveChat can be configured as a HIPAA compliant cloud service.
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Hoala Greevy
