How to Secure Your Zoom for HIPAA and Get the HIPAA Compliance Badge or Seal

 

Securing Zoom for HIPAA is critical for any covered entity or business associate, such as healthcare providers using Zoom for telehealth, therapy, or virtual consultations. Doing this right involves both technical security measures and organizational steps. Getting the HIPAA compliance badge, or certificate/seal, shows patients and authorities that you take patient data privacy seriously. Here’s an in-depth guide, including how to get the HIPAA badge/seal and what’s required for HIPAA-compliant Zoom.

• Enable Secure Zoom Plan: Use Zoom for Healthcare or Zoom’s HIPAA-compliant subscriptions. Regular Zoom accounts are not HIPAA compliant. You must specifically choose their Healthcare plan and ensure a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is signed with Zoom.
• Business Associate Agreement (BAA): A BAA is a mandatory legal contract between you (the covered entity) and Zoom (the service provider) that specifies both parties’ responsibilities to protect Protected Health Information (PHI). Without a signed BAA, you’re not HIPAA compliant no matter what settings you use.
• Configure Account-Level Security: Adjust settings to maximize data security:
  • Meeting encryption: Make sure End-to-End Encryption is enabled for all meetings involving PHI. This prevents unauthorized access or eavesdropping.
  • Disable cloud recordings or make recordings HIPAA-compliant: Either turn off cloud recordings or make sure they’re stored securely with restricted access, protected by encryption and strong passwords.
  • Authentication and access control: Require all participants to use unique logins (no anonymous logins), and enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).
  • Restrict meeting invitations and join permissions: Only invite appropriate staff/patients, use waiting rooms to control entry, and don’t post meeting links publicly.
  • Data retention and audit logs: Keep logs of meeting access and activities, but store them securely and limit retention to the necessary minimum.
• Train Your Staff: Human error is a big risk. Provide training on HIPAA and secure Zoom usage. Staff should know never to discuss PHI in a non-secure setting, and how to identify phishing attempts that target telehealth tools.
• Update Policies and Procedures: Write or update your HIPAA policy to include video conferencing. Limit PHI sharing to the minimum needed for care. Clearly assign access levels and responsibilities.
• Perform Risk Assessments: Periodically assess risks associated with your Zoom usage. This means identifying where PHI could leak or be accessed by the wrong parties, and remediating any found weaknesses. Schedule formal HIPAA security risk assessments.
• Partner With HIPAA Readiness Experts: Consider a HIPAA consulting and readiness-assessment firm like OCD Tech. They provide gap assessments, technical configurations, documentation templates, and compliance verification, which dramatically reduce the risk of missing key requirements or failing an audit.

The Most Important Factors for Passing a HIPAA Audit with Zoom:

• Signed BAA with Zoom (and any other video provider or cloud service you use).
• Strong technical security controls (encryption, access control, restricted recordings).
• Documented policies/changes, showing you know who can access PHI and how you’re protecting it.
• Incident response plan, in case a security issue or PHI breach occurs.
• Staff training and regular risk assessments.

How to get How to Secure Your Zoom for HIPAA badge/seal:

• There isn’t a single "official" Zoom HIPAA compliance badge from the US government. Instead, your organization can get a third-party assessment and:
  • Sign a BAA with Zoom;
  • Pass a HIPAA readiness or risk assessment from a qualified firm such as OCD Tech;
  • Follow their recommendations for configurations and policies;
  • Receive a certificate or seal from the assessor, which demonstrates your compliance efforts during audits or to patients.

Summary:

• Select Zoom’s Healthcare plan;
• Sign a Zoom BAA;
• Apply all technical protections;
• Train staff, update policies, do risk assessments;
• Engage consultants like OCD Tech for a HIPAA readiness seal or certification.