How many times have you found yourself inconvenienced by receiving an email from your doctor only to realize that opening that email is only the first step down the long road that is what should be a very simple correspondence? A simple yes or no question on whether they think it would be okay for you to start taking a pre-workout supplement to bring your exercise routine to the next level shouldn’t take 20 minutes because you have to go log into a clunky web-portal that looks like its fresh out of 1998. For a long time it feels like the Healthcare industry has been lagging behind the rest of the world’s major industries as far as convenience via technology but the good news is that there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

The reason that it appears common sense has been thrown to the wind by your healthcare provider is because they think that’s their only viable option to provide a HIPAA compliant solution. HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act and it all boils down to doctor/patient confidentiality. The idea behind the act is to keep what happens between you and your doctor private which I think is something everybody can get behind. That being said there are some strict guidelines that healthcare providers need to follow to accomplish this. This raises the question: is Gmail HIPAA compliant? The guidelines make it so regular email correspondence though providers like Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook don’t make the grade on their own when it comes to HIPPA’s cyber security standards. Violations of HIPPA’s guidelines can result in hefty fines, a blow to the provider’s reputation or worst case scenario: a breach in patient’s confidentiality and trust.

This has resulted in the majority of Healthcare providers relying on monotonous, unnecessary security measures like online web portals with outdated inbox applications as a work-around when in reality there is a much simpler, more reliable and convenient solution being provided by one of San Francisco’s fastest growing startups, Paubox.

In an ideal world doctors could interact freely with their patients via email just like in any other industry but for a long time providers haven’t been able to do this in fear of violating HIPAA compliance guidelines. What Paubox does is offer a HIPAA compliant email solution so that doctors and patients can correspond normally through email without jumping through any unnecessary hoops all while maintaining the highest level of cyber security possible. They seamlessly encrypt your current email address or they’ll even host your account. This allows doctors and patients to take a big step into the 21^st century allowing them to communicate effortlessly with the assurance that their conversations and medical records are secure.

Fortunately for everyone it appears the web portal will soon be joining the technology graveyard along with dial up internet, pagers, PDAs and Windows 98 as more and more healthcare providers are utilizing Paubox’s email encryption solution.

San Francisco is without a doubt the innovation capital of the world where tech giants like Google, Uber, and Salesforce got their start and have since shattered the mold for their respective industries.

I just got back from a trip out to the Bay Area visiting a couple friends where I spent a few days in the office of one of the fastest, up and coming startups, Paubox. The company recently went all in and made the move to the startup mecca from Hawaii and has since been featured on Entrepanuer.com and The Huffington Post. For too long it’s felt like the medical industry has been lagging behind the rest of the world but Paubox is looking to change that with an emphasis on efficiency and security. What Paubox has done is created an easier stream of communication by providing a HIPAA compliant email solution without the inconvenience of another clunky portal platform. With Paubox Doctors and patients can interact freely through email under the protection of Paubox seamless encryption.

In addition to their incredible product, Paubox comes equipped with a team driven by the success of their customers where their priority is making things stress-free as possible and that’s evident from their numerous customer success stories featured on their website. The environment in their office, located in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission, can only be described as electric. The team at Paubox takes on the “work hard play hard mentality” where everybody involved in the company is genuinely passionate about the product and eager to help implement it in an effort to chip away at the complacency that has developed in the healthcare industry. Paubox could very well set the tone for a more efficient future and be the first step in changing the healthcare industry as we know it.