HIPAA-Compliant WordPress Hosting

Secure, HIPAA Compliant Website Hosting for the Medical Marijuana / Cannabis Industry

Cannabis companies face numerous challenges and opportunities in the context of e-commerce, including payment processing, regulatory restrictions, and fulfillment options.

Convesio’s cutting-edge security infrastructure makes it an excellent choice for businesses in the Cannabis and Medical Marijuana industries, which often need to be HIPAA-compliant.

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HIPAA-Compliant Cannabis Website Hosting

Running a cannabis-related business is difficult enough. Cannabis retailers need to ensure their website remains operational and supported, especially given the unique challenges of the industry. Why worry if your website is going to go down, or if your host suddenly doesn’t want to support the cannabis industry?

Unlike most other WordPress hosts, Convesio’s managed hosting platform is open to cannabis, THC, CBD, and other marijuana-related websites. We support cannabis businesses in locations where they are legal. And unlike most other marijuana-focused WordPress hosts, we have cutting-edge technology and an expert team working around the clock to keep your site up and running smoothly. That makes Convesio the best WordPress hosting company that offers cannabis website hosting services.

Having a robust online store is crucial for cannabis retailers to maximize their online sales and provide a seamless shopping experience for their customers.

Plus, our platform is entirely HIPAA-compliant.

HIPAA Compliance

What is HIPAA Compliance?

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, mandates that businesses handling electronic protected health information must adhere to stringent safeguards when handling certain types of data.

A HIPAA-compliant website, then, is one that follows these rules. Failure to do so can result in significant damage to your reputation and legal penalties, including fines.

Learn more about HIPAA.

Does Convesio Issue a BAA?

Yes, Convesio issues Business Associate Agreements (BAA) with our clients, ensuring that data remains secure at every step of the process. BAAs are a must for being HIPAA-compliant.

Learn more about BAAs.

HIPAA Compliance and Cannabis

Do You Need to Be HIPAA-Compliant?

There is a common misconception that since medical marijuana is not federally legal, and HIPAA is a federal law, that HIPAA does not apply to medical marijuana dispensaries.

This, however, is untrue; HIPAA does in fact apply to the medical marijuana industry. To clear up misconceptions, we discuss the relevance of HIPAA to the medical marijuana and cannabis industries below.

What is  Protected Health Information (PHI)?

Not every business needs to adhere to HIPAA rules. So, how can you determine if your business is governed by HIPAA? The key question is whether your business deals with protected health information (PHI). If the answer is yes, then HIPAA compliance is a must for you. But what exactly counts as protected health information?

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees HIPAA, describes PHI as any health information that can be linked to an individual and covers aspects such as an individual’s past, present, or future physical or mental health condition; the delivery of health care to an individual; or the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to an individual.

The HHS has 18 identifiers it considers PHI:

  1. Patient names  
  2. Geographical elements (such as a street address, city, county, or zip code)
  3. Dates related to the health or identity of individuals (including birthdates, date of admission, date of discharge, date of death, or exact age of a patient older than 89)
  4. Telephone numbers
  5. Fax numbers
  6. Email addresses
  7. Social Security numbers
  8. Medical record numbers
  9. Health insurance beneficiary numbers
  10. Account numbers
  11. Certificate/license numbers
  12. Vehicle identifiers
  13. Device attributes or serial numbers
  14. Digital identifiers, such as website URLs 
  15. IP addresses
  16. Biometric elements, including finger, retinal, and voiceprints
  17. Full face photographic images 
  18. Other identifying numbers or codes 

So, how can you make your cannabis or medical marijuana business HIPAA compliant? The easy answer: pick a HIPAA-compliant host, like Convesio.

Security Features

HIPAA Compliant WordPress + Managed Updates

With thousands of themes and plugins available, WordPress is the best choice for cannabis businesses looking to create a HIPAA compliant website.

While there are hundreds of WordPress hosting companies available, most of them are aimed at lower-budget organizations that care less about security. As you can imagine, that’s a serious issue for any cannabis business that needs their website to be HIPAA compliant.

Don’t worry – that’s where Convesio comes in.

Unlike most other hosts, we include a number of security features by default, without any extra charges. These work around the clock to prevent malware and bots that can compromise your WordPress or WooCommerce website. Other hosting providers either charge extra for more security features or don’t include them at all.

Most importantly, Convesio utilizes an innovative technology called Docker containers. As the name suggests, containers are separate installations of your website that are spun up if you need more performance.

The result is that your site is entirely isolated and has isolated and dedicated resources. Your database, RAM, memory, CPU, and so on are dedicated – and not able to be affected by other sites on the server cluster.

Additionally, secure payment processing is crucial for cannabis e-commerce due to the federal regulations and legal complexities involved. Choosing the right payment processing platform ensures compliance and a successful online presence.

More Secure than VPS or Dedicated Hosting

Each Convesio site is deployed on its own fully isolated container. This is unlike other WordPress hosting providers, where a compromised WordPress website on the same server can infect yours.

Encryption in Transit

When a user enters personal medical information on your cannabis firm’s website, that data is encrypted at every step, from the user’s browser to our platform.

Encryption at Rest

Our secure form implementation ensures that personal data is encrypted in the WordPress database without causing performance issues.

Offsite Backups

We store our backups offsite on Amazon S3, adding an extra level of redundancy.

Physical Data Center Security

Learn more about our infrastructural security, which includes ballistic glass, fire suppression, biometric readers, 24×7 on-site security staff, and more.

Audit Logging

Keep track of who logs in to your website and accesses sensitive data with detailed audit logs.

HIPAA Audit
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Security is Our Utmost Priority

With Convesio, security is not an extra paid service. Unlike other WordPress hosting providers, we don’t tell our customers, “Sorry, we can’t help.” We work hard to keep your medical website secure and if there’s a problem, we’ll solve it.

WordPress security is at the core of what we do.

Starting with our infrastructure: our stack is protected by industry-leading applications and complemented by a suite of specialist WordPress solutions. Other web hosting providers tend to skimp on serious infrastructure and instead choose the absolute cheapest option. As you can imagine, this is why many WordPress hosting companies have a poor record for security.

We also work with our customers to implement and configure security plugins for the front-end such as WordFence or WebARX. We can also work with you to implement your own security features and preferences.

This provides a robust security layer – but our commitment doesn’t stop there. We monitor customer websites 24/7.

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Get Help via Slack

Hands-on help is a key element of our support strategy. Get real-time help from professional engineers, not customer service salespeople – all via Slack or email.

Full Control Over Your Site

It's Your Site – We're Just Here to Help

Many other hosts catering to medical marijuana providers and other healthcare professionals don’t give you total access to your website. HIPAA Vault, for example, prevents you from directly managing users, adding/removing themes, adding/removing plugins, and keeping your site updated. Other hosts are similar.

Convesio, on the other hand, gives you total access to your site, without restrictions. After all, it’s your business! And yet, your site will be just as secure. This is possible because of our Docker-based infrastructure, which allows for high levels of security directly at the server level. For cannabis retailers looking to sell cannabis products online, having an independent eCommerce website is crucial. It ensures compliance with federal and state laws, aligns with legal frameworks, and provides greater control over your eCommerce strategies.

Compliance Auditing

When we onboard your site, we do a compliance audit to ensure that everything is set up correctly.

Encryption Setup

As a part of the onboarding process, we set up form encryption, database encryption, and in-transit encryption to ensure that all data is secure.

Continual Monitoring

Our monthly update process consistently ensures that your site remains HIPAA compliant.

Cloudflare + Monarx

Extra Security Features

Unlike most other hosts, we include a Cloudflare Enterprise plan on every Convesio-hosted site for free – a $500 value. Cloudflare is a must-have for any eCommerce / WooCommerce website that experiences high amounts of traffic and wants to maintain high security levels. We also utilize Monarx, a cutting-edge industry leader, for automatic malware protection.

Enterprise DDOS Protection + Firewall

Enterprise-level DDOS protection from Cloudflare, an industry leader in network security.

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Our Cloudflare Web Application Firewall (WAF) protects your site from attackers around the clock.

Malware Protection with Monarx

Monarx delivers automatic malware protection for your website, ensuring that any potential threats are eliminated ahead of time.

Try Convesio

Top-Notch Support for Medical Marijuana Websites

Either in-app or via Slack, our team of experts are just a few clicks away. With response times usually under 5 minutes, we jump in and fix any problems right away. The market potential for medical cannabis is immense, with increasing legalization and growing consumer interest driving significant growth in the industry.

Online ordering is crucial for medical cannabis, as it enhances customer convenience and satisfaction, and integrates seamlessly with ecommerce platforms to manage online menus and orders.

FAQs

Convesio HIPAA-Compliant WordPress Hosting for the Cannabis and Medical Marijuana Industry

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, mandates that businesses handling electronic protected health information must adhere to stringent safeguards when handling certain types of data.

A HIPAA-compliant website, then, is one that follows these rules. Failure to follow HIPAA compliance rules can result in fines and damage to your business’s reputation. This is particularly important as the growth of online sales in the cannabis industry continues to rise, presenting unique challenges and regulations for cannabis sales.

Compliance is crucial in the legal cannabis industry, where navigating e-commerce requires strict adherence to laws to maintain customer trust and avoid penalties.

Yes, Convesio offers HIPAA-compliant website hosting services.

Yes, Convesio issues Business Associate Agreements (BAA) with our clients, ensuring that data remains secure at every step of the process. BAAs are a must for being HIPAA-compliant.

Learn more about BAAs.

 

We use Monarx, which delivers automatic malware protection for your website, ensuring that any potential threats are eliminated ahead of time.

Yes, our control panel and dashboard implement MFA.

Yes, we utilize database encryption to ensure the security and privacy of sensitive patient data. It is specially designed to store and manage client data while ensuring protection from unauthorized access, theft, or loss. 

Our database is designed to meet the HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) compliance requirements.

The encryption level used in most industry-standard products is already up-to-date and sufficiently secure. As such, if you are using any SaaS-based product, you do not need to worry about the level of encryption as it is 128-bit.

The Convesio Security page explains our multi-layered approach to network security.

We work with site owners to determine the best course of action to maintain HIPAA compliance of the ePHI in their site. This can be a combination of various solutions:

  1. Encrypted Forms
  2. 3rd Party Forms that are HIPAA compliant
  3. HIPAA compliant Email Services
  4. HIPAA compliant CRM integrations

Data is SHA and salt encrypted at rest and transit.