01In plain English
HIPAA is the US law that sets rules for protecting patient health information. A clinic, insurer or health business that shares this information with a software vendor needs the vendor to sign a business associate agreement (BAA), which makes the vendor legally responsible for protecting it too.
02Why it matters when you are choosing
If you work in or with healthcare and any patient details could go into a tool, using one that will not sign a BAA is a compliance problem, not a preference. Many vendors only sign on their enterprise plan.
03What to check
Ask directly whether they will sign a BAA and on which plan. "HIPAA-ready" or "HIPAA-friendly" without a BAA does not cover you.
04The tools
71 of the 130 tools we checked support HIPAA. Each one is checked against the vendor's own pages. A tool missing from this list may not have been checked yet, which is not the same as a no.
Fin
Intercom
Workato
Gorgias
Zendesk
