Most healthcare providers know that HIPAA sets the rules for how patient information must be protected. Fewer realize that the HITECH Act makes those rules even tougher. If your website has forms that collect patient information, HITECH affects you directly.
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was passed in 2009 to encourage the adoption of electronic health records and to strengthen HIPAA. It did not replace HIPAA. Instead, it expanded HIPAA’s reach, raised penalties for violations, and added new requirements for breach notifications.
The result is simple. If your website collects Protected Health Information (PHI), you are subject to HIPAA. If your website mishandles that information, HITECH makes the consequences more severe.
Every web form that asks for patient details, whether for contact, scheduling, or intake, is handling PHI. Under HIPAA, those forms must be compliant. Under HITECH, if they are not, the risk of penalties and breach reporting is much higher.
In other words, if your website uses generic tools like WordPress plugins or Google Forms, HITECH makes those risks more expensive and more public.
One of the biggest changes under HITECH is the breach notification requirement. If patient data collected through a website form is lost, stolen, or improperly accessed, you must notify both the patients and the federal government. In some cases, you may also need to notify the media.
This means a simple website form misconfiguration could turn into a public compliance failure.
Before HITECH, HIPAA penalties were limited. After HITECH, fines for violations can reach up to $1.5 million per year for identical violations, with escalating tiers based on the level of negligence.
For a small or midsize practice, even a single website breach can be financially devastating.
HITECH made clear that business associates are directly liable under HIPAA. That includes the vendors who handle data submitted through your forms. If your form provider does not sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) and cannot demonstrate HIPAA compliance, they share liability. But regulators will still hold your organization responsible for using a non-compliant vendor.
Several common practices create exposure under both HIPAA and HITECH:
Using form plugins that store PHI in unprotected content management system databases
Emailing form submissions to standard inboxes like Gmail or Outlook without encryption
Lacking audit trails to show who accessed submissions and when
Retaining old submissions indefinitely with no deletion or retention policy
Each of these scenarios becomes far riskier under HITECH because of the notification and penalty requirements.
HITECH absolutely affects your website if that website collects patient information. It does not add new technical rules for forms, but it magnifies the impact of every HIPAA violation. Breaches must be reported, penalties are higher, and both providers and vendors share liability.
If you are still using standard website forms, you are exposed. The only way to reduce this risk is to use forms built specifically for HIPAA compliance.
Form Vessel provides exactly that:
Encryption in transit and at rest
Compliant storage infrastructure
Signed BAAs
Audit logs and access controls
Secure retention and deletion policies
Your website forms are no longer just a convenience feature. Under HITECH, they are a regulated entry point for PHI. Treating them casually risks penalties, breaches, and reputational damage that cannot be quietly contained. The fix is straightforward: replace weak forms with compliant ones.