The Problem
Where Prescription Data Loses Protection
Prescription Data Often Sits in Plaintext on SFTP Servers
Specialty pharmacy referrals, prior authorization packets, enrollment forms, and fulfillment workflows frequently move through SFTP servers. These files often sit in plaintext for hours while waiting to be retrieved, making SFTP one of the highest-risk patterns in healthcare data movement.
PBMs and Clearinghouses Hold Plaintext Data
Traditional workflows require prescription and claims data to be decrypted before adjudication. As data moves through PBMs, clearinghouses, and fulfillment partners, each organization becomes an independent breach risk.
Every Handoff Expands Exposure
A single prescription may touch prescribers, PBMs, specialty pharmacies, manufacturer hubs, payers, and logistics partners before reaching the patient. Each handoff creates another location where PHI can be copied, stored, or exposed.
HIPAA Safe Harbor
A Breach of Properly Encrypted PHI May Not Be a Reportable Breach
If protected health information is lost, stolen, or accessed by an unauthorized party, properly encrypted data remains unreadable and unusable. HHS guidance is explicit: encrypted PHI does not trigger breach notification requirements. That means a security incident does not automatically become a reportable breach. The result can be reduced breach liability, lower cyber insurance costs, and a dramatically different outcome for your organization.
“Protected health information (PHI) is rendered unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals if one or more of the following applies: electronic PHI has been encrypted as specified in the HIPAA Security Rule… such encryption renders the breach notification provisions of the HITECH Act inapplicable.”
No Public Disclosure
No 60-day notification clock, no HHS portal listing, no press release.
Reduced OCR Exposure
Demonstrated safeguards reduce regulatory and enforcement exposure.
Lower Insurance Premiums
Record-level encryption may qualify for carrier premium credits.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Seald Healthcare actually do?
Seald Healthcare encrypts patient data at the record level before it reaches third-party systems and attaches access policies that remain with the data wherever it goes. You decide who can access each record, under what conditions, and for how long, and you can revoke that access at any time, even after the data has been shared. The result is that PHI remains readable only to the people and systems you authorize, across every vendor, cloud, and workflow.
Will Seald Healthcare slow down our claims processing or clinical workflows?
No. Encryption uses AES-256, which is hardware accelerated on modern processors. Cryptographic operations add microseconds, not milliseconds. In practice, network and application performance dominate workflow latency, not encryption.
Do our vendors have to install software or pay anything?
For most vendors, no. If a vendor's staff simply needs to view data, they access it through a secure portal, authenticate, and see only what your policy allows. There is nothing to install and nothing to pay. Higher-volume vendors that process data programmatically can later integrate directly through our SDK. That integration is also free to the vendor.
If one of our vendors is breached, are our patients still exposed?
Not the way they are today. When a vendor stores patient data in plaintext, a breach of that vendor exposes every record. With Seald Healthcare, the vendor holds only ciphertext and does not hold the keys, so a breach of their environment reaches data that remains unreadable. Under the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule (45 CFR §164.402), properly encrypted PHI with keys held separately is not considered unsecured PHI. A breach that reaches only encrypted data may not be a reportable breach at all. That can mean no notification campaign, reduced regulatory exposure, and a dramatically different outcome for your organization.