How large is the HIPAA industry?

 The HIPAA industry is vast. Here at Paubox, it's been surprising to see how many different types of organizations face HIPAA compliance hurdles. In our case, the market for HIPAA Compliant Email is comprised of a lot more organizations than just hospitals, dentists and nursing facilities. While there's a lot of information on Google about the size of U.S. Healthcare, I could not find a comprehensive resource for the size of the HIPAA industry. So I did the research myself. As I'd discover, there is a sizable difference between the two. The goal of this post is to comprehensively determine the size of the HIPAA industry.

Let's begin this post with some statistics on U.S. Healthcare.

U.S. Healthcare Statistics at a Glance

• 1 in 8 Americans work in U.S. Healthcare.
• The U.S. Department Labor lists 18 million Americans working in Healthcare as of 2014. That number is forecast to grow to 22 million by 2024.
• As of 2016, 323 million people live in the United States. Of that, 151 million are in the workforce.
• By 2018, Healthcare will comprise close to 18% US gross domestic product.
• Roughly 10,000 baby boomers retire every day in the United States.
• Employment in the Healthcare industry has been growing for decades.
• U.S. Healthcare is expected to add over 4 million jobs between 2012 and 2022. That's more than any other industry.

U.S. Healthcare is not the same as HIPAA

When we talk about HIPAA and U.S. Healthcare however, the numbers don't match up evenly. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) does not count Pharmaceutical or Health Insurance companies in its coverage of the Healthcare market. We of course know that both Pharma and Health Insurance must be HIPAA compliant. When I did the research, I discovered the Pharmaceutical and Health Insurance industries totaled 1.5 million employees. So far that gets us to 19.5 million American employees that must be HIPAA compliant. I then began to wonder if there were additional employment categories that didn't fall into the typical definition of healthcare, yet must be HIPAA compliant nonetheless. What followed next was a deep dive into the U.S. Labor market using the National Employment Matrix tool.

HIPAA Market Bigger than Expected

Eight hours and several hundred lines of Excel entries later, I had my answer. In 2014, 22 million Americans were required to be HIPAA compliant in the workplace. By 2022, it's forecast to climb to nearly 26 million employees. That's a 16% jump in just eight years.

HIPAA and U.S. Healthcare Differential

The variance between the U.S. Dept. of Labor's definition of U.S. Healthcare and the actual size of the HIPAA industry is substantial. If we divide 18 million by 22 million, we get a differential of 18.2%. That's a big difference!