A cornerstone for building and maintaining patient trust is securing personal health information (PHI) at every stage of the medical journey, including ensuring HIPAA-compliant printing and mailing for billing statements and other sensitive communications.
These days, both patient trust and HIPAA compliance are proving to be a growing challenge. Patient trust has fallen from 71.5% in 2020 to 40.1% in 2024, according to research by a group of universities including Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital. The decline has been driven in part by HIPAA violations from data breaches, phishing scams and other causes that exposed PHI and personally identifiable information (PII).
Healthcare data breaches in 2025 cost an average of $7.42 million, more than any other industry, and took an average of 279 days to identify and contain—the longest time of any industry, according to IBM. Some of these high costs are due to increasing enforcement actions by the federal government against HIPAA violators.
It’s more important than ever that healthcare providers and revenue cycle management firms can rely on patient statement printing and mailing companies with first-class HIPAA compliance. In fact, print and mail partners offering high-level security, trained staff, and advanced quality control and other technologies, go beyond basic compliance to enhance and reinforce patient trust in ways that surpass what many healthcare organizations can achieve in-house.
How HIPAA-compliant print and mail leaders improve patient trust
By safeguarding patient data in financial communications, print and mail companies transform a behind-the-scenes operation into trust-building opportunities, strengthening the crucial patient-provider relationship. One of the biggest impacts that printing and mailing services can have on patient trust is not eroding it through HIPAA violations.
Lack of compliance remains all too common across healthcare. Admittedly, HIPAA is one of the toughest and most complex U.S. regulatory frameworks, given its detailed requirements and broad scope as well as the need to adapt to constantly evolving threats and technology.
The top violations that led to financial penalties in 2025 include:
- Poor access control
- Failure to encrypt and secure data
- Improper disposal of PHI and medical data
- Failure to conduct an organization-wide risk analysis
- Lack of HIPAA-certified employee training
Download white paper: The Vital Role of Financial Communications in the Patient Journey
To prevent these and other missteps, top HIPAA-compliant printing and mailing services firms build a culture, design systems and processes and implement technologies that achieve compliance, stay on top of risks and give providers, RCM firms and patients peace of mind. Here are four pillars for success:
- Demonstrate unwavering data security – Measures to protect data must be stringent, end-to-end and updated to counter new threats.
- Advanced encryption: Encrypting patient data during transfer and storage protects it from unauthorized access.
- Secure infrastructure: Using secure servers, firewalls, and intrusion prevention systems creates a “nearly impossible-to-penetrate bubble” for patient data.
- Secure file transfers: Using SFTP ensures PHI is only accessible to authorized recipients, reducing breach risks.
- Audit trails and compliance tracking: Comprehensive tracking of data access points provides accountability and transparency.
- Implement robust physical safeguards – It’s not enough to have procedures and governance policies in place. Companies and their employees must strictly follow security and privacy measures and prove they do so with regular third-party audits.
- Controlled access: Gated entries, key card access, and surveillance cameras on plant floors restrict physical access to sensitive materials.
- Secure handoffs: Closed carts to move printed communications in envelopes to a secure area and shrink-wrap mailings before USPS pickup.
- Secure destruction: For both returned mail and any misprints, paper jams or other issues during production and finishing.
- Technology restrictions: Require employees to keep cell phones in lockers and block USB drives that could obtain PHI and PII.
- Leverage technology for security and quality control – Leading HIPAA-compliant print and mail companies ensure the right patient receives the right documents while avoiding blatant exposure such as information showing through envelope windows.
- Customer communications management (CCM) platform: Develop, approve, update, track, and report on print and digital communications. When integrated directly with print and mail operations, it offers 360-degree visibility, tracking every piece from creation to delivery, ensuring integrity and compliance.
- Job-level and piece-level tracking: Barcodes on each document and envelope and real-time camera imaging to match patient documents during production and finishing.
- Address verification and mail tracking: All mail should be run through NCOA, CASS and DPV databases, with ACS as an additional service.
- Business continuity: Redundant facilities with comparable equipment set up for HIPAA-compliant printing and mailing services in case of disaster.
- Provide regular employee training – HIPAA compliance depends on people understanding and following the rules.
- Company-wide focus: HIPAA-compliant print and mail specialists should provide ongoing training on HIPAA and PHI/PII for all employees and all new hires–not just print production and mailing services staff.
- Human oversight: Skilled operators remain critical in supervising high-end equipment, software and automated workflows, resolving any issues during production and finishing and doing final QC reviews.
Complying with HIPAA and protecting patient data is directly linked to protecting and enhancing patient trust. Trust, of course, is the essential basis for positive patient financial experiences, willingness to pay, and likelihood of referring friends and family to a provider. It makes partnering with a leader in HIPAA-compliant patient statement printing and mailing a strategic necessity for effective patient financial engagement.
Key takeaways:
- A HIPAA-compliant print and mail leader goes beyond compliance to help healthcare organizations to improve patient trust, which has declined in recent years.
- Successfully meeting HIPAA requirements requires building and nurturing an organizational culture, designing systems and processes and implementing technologies to achieve compliance and stay on top of risks.
- A HIPAA-compliant printing and mailing company focuses on protecting patient data through the use of physical security measures, technology and employee training.
Learn how our HIPAA-compliant printing and mailing can help you build patient trust. Contact us today.
