Which cloud call center software solutions are HIPAA compliant? SMS

Which cloud call center software solutions are HIPAA compliant, that include SMS text messaging?

In the video below, Mike explains how cloud call (contact) center software vendors often vary on what they consider “HIPAA compliant SMS,” and gives you six questions to ask (internally and externally), that will help un-muddy the water.

Want Mike’s recommendation on the cloud call center vendors your company should be quoting? Click below to ask him today.

About Mike
Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards and in 2011, he was honored as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. You can also hear him as the host of the popular Information Technology podcast, ITsmiths with Mike Smith. Follow Mike on LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.

Transcript

Your company is looking for a new cloud call center software solution and it needs to be HIPAA compliant.

Well, which service providers offer HIPAA compliant cloud call center solutions? Well, there’s a lot of service providers who say that they offer HIPAA compliant call center software solutions, but what they define as HIPAA compliant may not be the same as what your company defines as HIPAA compliant.

So you really need to create a list of what are the actual required features your company needs for HIPAA compliance. That list could potentially be very long. There’s a lot of different items on that list and I’m covering them in different videos.

Well, today I’m going to be talking about SMS. What does HIPAA compliance mean when it comes to SMS and what questions should you be asking potential vendors for call center software solutions or contact center software solutions?

Shortcut

But before I get started, just a quick note. If you’re mid-size company and you’re looking at a new cloud call center software solution and you want to know which vendors you should be quoting, you can definitely watch this video. That’s great. I’ll give you some good information here. But if you want to take a shortcut, just reach out and email me or call me. I’m happy to help you with this.

I’m a broker for all the major cloud contact center solution service providers. And I’ve been doing this for 18 years. I know all the vendors inside and out and based on your company’s specific requirements, I can give you a small handful of service providers that I’d recommend that you quote. Based on those requirements. I could also introduce you to the right people at those companies. So more information on that later in the video, but I just wanted to mention that real quick. Just reach out and contact me.

It has to be on a secure platform

All right, so what does SMS mean when it comes to HIPAA compliance and cloud contact center solutions? Well, as you can imagine if you’re texting on a cellphone even if you’re texting from your company’s contact center solutions soft phone, or your application that you’re running for your cloud contact center solution. Once an employee sends out a text message and it lands on somebody outside of your company’s cellphone, all of a sudden now it’s on their cellphone and now it’s no longer HIPAA compliant because they can sit on that cellphone forever and anybody can see it, right?

So what do you do if you want your contact center agents to be able to send and receive text messages from your customer, but it still needs to be HIPAA compliant? Well, first and foremost, you can’t do it on regular text applications. You can’t send it to your customers’ personal cellphones. That cloud call center software solution provider has to have a separate HIPAA compliant SMS application. So it requires everyone to have a separate app in addition to the cloud call center solution. So that’s first and foremost.

Okay, so now that we’ve established that the HIPAA compliant cloud call center solution has to have a separate application for SMS texting what features within that application should you be asking about to make sure it’s HIPAA compliant according to your company’s requirements? Well, let me give you a possible list of questions that you should be asking.

Question #1 – Multifactor Authentication

Does that application have multifactor authentication for both your call center agent and also the person on the other end? Either your patient or your client or your customer. Both sides have to have multifactor authentication in order to log into that application.

Question #2 – Sensitive Data Encryption

Does that application have sensitive data encryption so that while the text messages are taking place, nobody can receive or intercept that transmission?

Question #3 – Secure Cloud Storage

Secure cloud storage. Where or are those text messages, those SMS messages, are they being stored anywhere? And if so, where are they being stored and is that a secure location?

Question #4 – Automatic Deletion

Do the SMS messages have an automatic deletion setting? This meaning that after maybe 30 days, all the previous text messages that have been sent or received are automatically deleted. Is that a setting that you can set up within that upper SMS application?

Question #5 – Vendor Access

Vendor access. Is the service provider for your cloud call center solution, are they able to access the SMS text messages? So can a customer service rep see the text is going back and forth within that chat application? If so, that’s not HIPAA compliant.

Question #6 – Tracking Data

SMS tracking data. Meaning, is your company able to see the date and time of every single text message sent and received? Some HIPAA compliance companies or some companies require that for their HIPAA compliance. Or maybe you don’t want your employees to be able to see that or certain employees to be able to see that, but definitely a question to ask.

So I hope that helps out a little bit.

Which solutions offer what you need?

Again, if you want to know which service providers, your company should quote for a cloud contact center solution that’s HIPAA compliant don’t Google it, don’t research it for hours. You’re probably going to be on the internet for a long time and you probably still won’t find the right vendors to talk to because there’s literally hundreds of them out there that claim they are.

So instead just reach out and email me or call me (714.593.0011). I’m happy to help. Again, I’ve been a broker for all these companies for 18 years so I know all of them inside out and I can recommend the right companies to you really quickly for you to quote. And I can introduce you to the right people within those companies. And I can oversee the whole process to make sure you guys get the best pricing from those vendors and that they’re working with you in a timely manner, all that good stuff.

And even better news is all of it doesn’t cost you a thing. Those vendors pay our company our broker fees. So your company doesn’t have to pay us anything. So there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least reach out and ask me my opinion. I’m happy to help you and you can take it or leave it. If you don’t like my opinion, that’s fine, but guarantee you I’ll probably save you a lot of time and a lot of headaches from getting with the wrong vendor.

So if you like this video, don’t forget to subscribe to the channel so we can start getting rid of all these commercials that YouTube puts on them. Once we get to a thousand subscribers, all the commercials can go away. And then also like the video and I will catch you on the next one.