Short answer: Yes, you do in order to use the space.
Long answer: 99% of our members put their client’s contact information (name, phone number and/or email address) into the system so that the clients receive appointment reminders. In theory, if you never put any of your client’s name or contact information into the system then we would not need to sign a BAA. However, there are three reasons we require you to sign one anyway:
1. If you ever forgot - even just once - and put their name in, then their name plus the nature of your business could be construed as protected health information (PHI) and make you liable for a hipaa violation. If you’ve ever been up late entering notes or scheduling appointments, then you know this is a very real possibility.
2. The software work required to change this would involve a lot of work. We thought through this and we would need to allow members to opt-in or opt-out of the BAA, track who is in each case, remove the ability to enter PHI if they are opted out and, inevitably, allow opted out individuals to opt back in when they change their mind. Taking into account the fact that this is a request by fewer than 1% of our members, it does not make sense to undertake modifying the software for this complicated and very rarely used option. In other words, the software literally won't allow you to not sign the BAA.
3. There’s no downside to signing a BAA! You’re not giving anything up or taking on any liability. In fact, it’s quite the opposite in that by signing the BAA you are legally passing on liability to another party, which is a positive for you and your business.
In light of the above three reasons, we don’t allow members to opt out of signing the BAA. If you would like to join our community and utilize our space, it’s a requirement that you sign a BAA with our software vendor.