HIPAA Compliance, Email Marketing, and Call Privacy: What Home Care Agencies Need to Know

At Home Care Marketing Pros, we take privacy, data protection, and regulatory compliance very seriously — especially when it involves client and caregiver information.

Because home care agencies often handle sensitive personal details, it’s essential to understand how HIPAA compliance works, what marketing activities are permitted, and how to protect your agency from unnecessary risk.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) applies primarily to two types of organizations:

• Covered Entities — healthcare providers, health plans, and clearinghouses that transmit health information electronically.

• Business Associates — vendors or service providers that handle Protected Health Information (PHI) on behalf of a covered entity.

Most non-medical home care agencies (those providing personal care, companionship, or household support) are not classified as covered entities, since they don’t bill Medicare or process medical claims.

However, these agencies often collect or store sensitive personal information — for example:

“My mom has dementia.”
“We need help after my father’s surgery.”

Even if your agency is not legally required to be HIPAA compliant, this kind of data still deserves protection. Treating all personal client and caregiver information with the same level of care as PHI builds trust and prevents privacy breaches.

Many popular email tools — such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and similar platforms — are not HIPAA compliant.

Constant Contact, for example, explicitly states that it:

• Does not sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

• Does not permit the storage or transmission of PHI.

That means if you export contact data from a HIPAA-secure system (like CareFunnels/HighLevel) and import it into Constant Contact or another non-compliant platform, you’re moving sensitive information outside of a secure environment.

Even if the contact record includes only a name and email address, that data could still be tied to someone who has shared care-related details — making it potentially identifiable health information.

✅ Best Practice: Keep all email communication and contact data inside your CareFunnels system, which operates with full encryption, access controls, and HIPAA-compliant safeguards through Mailgun’s enterprise-level infrastructure.

While it’s technically possible to export contacts from CareFunnels, doing so should be strictly controlled.

Once exported, data loses the security protections of the HIPAA-compliant environment. Saving or uploading that data to platforms like Constant Contact, Google Sheets, or Excel exposes it to potential breaches and unauthorized access.

In short:

• Exporting client or caregiver data to a non-secure system may violate HIPAA.

• Even if HIPAA doesn’t legally apply, it’s still a high-risk practice that could harm your agency’s reputation and client trust.

Some marketing vendors claim to “listen to calls” for training or content ideas. While this might sound harmless, it creates serious privacy risks.

Call recordings often include:

• Client and caregiver names, phone numbers, and addresses.

• Health-related information (“My mother has Alzheimer’s,” “We need 24-hour care”).

• Employment or application details for caregivers.

If any outside vendor is manually reviewing or listening to those recordings without proper authorization, training, or a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in place, it could lead to a major privacy breach.

Additionally, some states (like California and others) are two-party consent states, which means both the caller and the agency must consent to the recording and any external review.

✅ Best Practice: Marketing analytics should rely on call metadata only (duration, answer rate, etc.), not the call content itself, unless accessed within a compliant and secure system.

At Home Care Marketing Pros, we’ve built our systems and policies around strict compliance and verified oversight:

• We partner with Compliancy Group, a leading HIPAA compliance firm, for ongoing training, risk assessments, and verification.

• Our CareFunnels platform operates under a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with HighLevel.

• All data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

• Access is limited to trained, authorized team members only.

• We never export client or caregiver data to non-compliant systems.

• All communication tools — CRM, email, and call tracking — are configured for secure use inside CareFunnels.

This ensures your agency’s data remains safe, secure, and handled according to the highest professional standards.

📄 Learn more: Compliancy Group – HIPAA Verification Program

To safeguard your agency, clients, and team, we recommend the following:
✅ Keep all contact and call data securely stored within CareFunnels.
✅ Do not export data or upload it to third-party platforms that are not HIPAA compliant.
✅ Never allow outside vendors to listen to recorded calls unless they have a signed BAA and documented privacy training.
✅ Train your internal staff on proper data-handling procedures.

Even if HIPAA does not legally apply to your agency, following these practices shows professionalism, builds client confidence, and minimizes risk.

To maintain full privacy protection and compliance, we recommend that all client and caregiver data — including contact lists, forms, and call recordings — remain securely managed within your HIPAA-compliant CareFunnels environment.

This ensures:

• Full encryption during transmission and storage.

• Secure access controls and audit logs.

• Verified compliance oversight from Compliancy Group.

• Peace of mind knowing your agency’s data is protected at every step.

• Constant Contact and similar platforms are not HIPAA compliant.

• Exporting contacts or leads from CareFunnels to a non-secure system can create compliance and privacy risks.

• Listening to recorded calls without authorization or a signed BAA is a serious privacy violation.

• Keeping all data within CareFunnels ensures compliance, accountability, and long-term client trust.

At Home Care Marketing Pros, we treat every piece of information with the same level of care your agency provides to clients — confidentially, securely, and with integrity.