University of Colorado Medicine (CU Medicine) is the largest multispecialty physician group practice in the Rocky Mountain region, offering a comprehensive range of primary and specialty care services. With over 75 primary and specialty care clinics across metro Denver and Colorado’s Front Range, CU Medicine serves as a cornerstone of community healthcare.
Behind the scenes, CU Medicine’s marketing team drives brand visibility, strengthens brand perception, and fuels business growth. But when federal guidance from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) revealed compliance risks tied to their digital tracking practices on their public facing website, they faced a critical decision: adapt to a privacy-first model or risk violating HIPAA guidelines.
Here’s how CU Medicine navigated this maze of regulations without sacrificing marketing performance.
In the wake of OCR’s guidance on tracking technologies, CU Medicine identified a big risk in their use of native Google and Meta pixels on their website. The realization came into sharp focus after attending the Healthcare Marketing and Physician Services Summit (HMPS), where privacy challenges in healthcare marketing were a recurring theme.
CU Medicine’s leadership knew they needed to quickly find a compliant path forward. Their options were stark:
The team chose the latter, prioritizing patient data privacy.
“Once we pulled the pixels off our website, we lost visibility into all of our advertising and our ability to remarket and retarget our audiences,” explains Michelle Malgesini, CU Medicine’s Associate Director of Marketing. “We continued all of our advertising programs, but we no longer had visibility to how those programs or our website were performing for about four months.”
CU Medicine’s YouTube channel added more risk into the mix. Their marketing team creates original videos every month in which providers share health information tips, discuss health symptoms, and inform viewers about treatments to consider for their conditions. CU Medicine had been embedding these YouTube videos on its website. However, these videos transmitted protected health information (PHI) to YouTube—a platform that doesn’t sign Business Associate Agreements (BAAs). As a result, CU Medicine had to suspend its video hosting strategy entirely.
“Though we continued creating video content, we removed all videos from our website for about six months until we had a compliant solution,” Michelle recalls.
After speaking with Freshpaint at the Healthcare Marketing and Physician Services Summit (HMPS), CU Medicine quickly moved forward with Freshpaint’s Healthcare Privacy Platform.
“Freshpaint stood out to us because of their focus on healthcare, their deep understanding of HIPAA compliance, and their breadth of experience with a large number of customers,” says Michelle. “Our team also appreciated that Freshpaint is a codeless solution that didn’t require getting rid of the tools our marketing team uses, like Google Analytics.”
CU Medicine engaged stakeholders across marketing, IT, compliance, and their advertising agency to ensure a seamless rollout. With Freshpaint’s server-side tracking, they reintroduced tools like Google Ads, Meta Ads, and Google Analytics on their website without exposing PHI, reestablishing their tracking capabilities and safeguarding patient privacy.
Freshpaint also provided compliant solutions for mapping and video hosting, enabling CU Medicine to replace Google Maps and restore YouTube content on their website without transmitting PHI.
Within just weeks of implementing Freshpaint, CU Medicine achieved four major milestones:
Beyond the results, CU Medicine highlighted Freshpaint’s commitment to collaboration and continuous improvement.
“What really set Freshpaint apart during implementation was their earnest desire for product feedback and their willingness to act on it,” says Jack Gravolet, Web and Email Marketing Specialist at CU Medicine. “They took our input seriously and made real improvements based on our needs.”
Drew Redfield, CU Medicine’s Salesforce and Web Communications Manager, agreed, adding, “Freshpaint followed through on every promise, ensuring our compliant video hosting and mapping needs were fully met. They also worked seamlessly with our website vendor team, making the process even smoother.”
Michelle echoed these sentiments, saying, “This was the fastest and smoothest third-party software implementation our marketing team has ever had. Freshpaint’s team was responsive, understood our need to move quickly, and worked with us as a partner, not just a vendor.”
Since teaming up with Freshpaint, CU Medicine has continued to thrive in an increasingly challenging landscape, running high-performing marketing campaigns while keeping patients’ and visitors’ data secure.
“Thanks to Freshpaint, we have a HIPAA-compliant, privacy-first approach to managing our user data, our marketing campaigns, and our video hosting,” says Michelle.
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