FAQs: Geonetric Privacy Filter & Healthcare Marketing

Learn how we help hospitals and health systems safely utilize analytics without risking HIPAA violations.

In marketing, it’s not uncommon to hear advice about tracking analytics and how you’re flying blind without them and have no way to track performance, calculate ROI, and evolve your strategy.

While it’s not that simple in healthcare, helping hospitals and health systems leverage analytics while staying compliant is exactly what we designed Geonetric Privacy Filter to do.

Read on to learn how your organization can confidently use data to achieve organizational goals.

What is Geonetric Privacy Filter?

Geonetric Privacy Filter is a fully-managed privacy solution that removes or anonymizes high-risk data from marketing analytics tools, including GA4, Google Ads, and Meta Ads, without compromising user privacy or risking costly HIPAA violations.

Why do healthcare organizations need HIPAA-safe analytics?

Health systems and hospitals need a way to securely and safely track their marketing analytics to gain a deeper understanding of healthcare consumers’ online behavior, evolve their strategies, and protect their organizations from privacy violations.

Does Geonetric sign a Business Associates Agreement (BAA)?

Yes, Geonetric has a BAA in place with Google covering Privacy Filter, and we will review and sign your BAA.

How much IT effort does Privacy Filter setup require?

Privacy Filter is a fully-managed solution that removes the burden from your IT and web teams. We’ll handle setup, configuration, real-time monitoring, and ongoing updates to ensure your analytics are compliant without disrupting operations.

However, our recommended approach does require adding additional records to your domain’s DNS and creating a new subdomain. This directs analytics requests through Privacy Filter, allowing the solution to filter out sensitive information.

During the implementation process, we’ll provide your IT team with documentation and a technical implementation meeting, if needed, to review the required changes.

What is the Privacy Filter implementation timeline?

Setting up Privacy Filter is a fairly quick process, and we can usually have it up and running within a few days! The exact time to implement can vary, depending on:

The time it takes your IT team to place the DNS records

How long DNS propagation takes (Typically just a few minutes up to one day, but could take longer in some cases)

When your final allowlist (parameters that are allowed to pass through the filter) is confirmed by your legal or compliance review team

What access is required for setting up Privacy Filter?

Our team requires access to Google Tag Manager and GA4 to complete the setup. If you choose to use Privacy Filter for Google Ads and Meta Ads, we’ll also need your Meta API Access Token and Google Analytics and Tag Manager access if you aren’t already using Privacy Filter for Analytics as well.

The Office for Civil Rights guidance was overturned – is Privacy Filter still necessary?

High-risk data collection remains a significant concern within healthcare organizations and the patients they serve.

The OCR guidance being overruled may have affected how we view which platforms and scripts are allowed within the industry, but that has not changed ongoing concerns among digital corporations like Google and Meta about overextending the amount of data they collect.

By implementing a solution like Geonetric Privacy Filter, you can strengthen your organization’s compliance strategy for current and future HIPAA changes or rulings.

Ready to get started?

If Geonetric Privacy Filter sounds like the solution to your organization’s analytics concerns, our team is ready to help. Reach out to us today to schedule a demo!

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