Zapier is not HIPAA compliant and cannot be used by a HIPAA Covered Entity, Business Associate, or subcontractor to create, receive, maintain, transmit, or store Protected Health Information because Zapier does not sign Business Associate Agreements and its automation model relies on connected applications and sub-processors that do not support HIPAA compliance.
Zapier is a no-code automation platform used to connect web applications and route data between them through automated workflows. In healthcare operations, that type of automation could be used for tasks such as notifications, file handling, and other workflow coordination. The compliance limitation is that Zapier does not support regulated healthcare and medical data under HIPAA, which restricts the platform to use cases where Protected Health Information is not exposed to Zapier or any connected applications.
A Business Associate Agreement is a prerequisite when a vendor will create, receive, maintain, or transmit Protected Health Information on behalf of a HIPAA Covered Entity or Business Associate. Zapier’s stated position is that it cannot sign Business Associate Agreements or equivalent agreements for handling Protected Health Information. Without a Business Associate Agreement, a covered entity is not permitted to disclose Protected Health Information to the vendor for the vendor to process or store as part of the service.
Zapier presents security and compliance features that are common in enterprise platforms, including monitoring and logging capabilities, identity and access management options, and encryption for data at rest. Customers can also use controls such as multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, and application-level controls that limit access to integrations and the data passing through them. These security features do not change HIPAA status when the platform will not execute a Business Associate Agreement and when the platform’s connectivity model includes applications and service providers that do not support HIPAA compliance.
The scope of integrations is central to the HIPAA analysis. Zapier’s value depends on connecting a large number of third-party applications, and many of those applications do not support HIPAA compliance. Zapier also uses multiple sub-processors as part of its automation processes, and the presence of sub-processors that do not support HIPAA compliance prevents the platform from being used with Protected Health Information. The platform has also been described as using ChatGPT for automation of certain workloads, and that component does not support HIPAA compliance within the same framework described for Protected Health Information handling.
Healthcare organizations can still use Zapier for administrative tasks when Protected Health Information is excluded from the automated workflows and from the connected applications involved in those workflows. That constraint requires operational discipline because Protected Health Information can be introduced through form fields, free-text entries, file names, attachments, and downstream storage destinations. A compliance program that evaluates workflows, limits what data can be routed through Zapier, and trains workforce members on prohibited data types is required if Zapier is used in a regulated environment for non-Protected Health Information automation.