Reliant Behavioral Health Deploys Tumbleweed’s E-mail Firewall for HIPAA Compliance
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 15, 2003–Tumbleweed(r) Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:TMWD – News), a leading provider of mission-critical Internet communications software for enterprises, financial services organizations and government, announced today that Reliant Behavioral Health (RBH), which manages behavioral health benefits for major health plans in the Pacific Northwest, has implemented the Tumbleweed MMS(TM) e-mail firewall, including the Tumbleweed MMS Secure Redirect(TM) module for encrypted message delivery to any e-mail client, as their HIPAA-compliant solution for secure e-mail delivery of electronic faxes containing Protected Health Information (PHI).
As a healthcare organization managing benefits such as mental health and chemical dependency, RBH must comply with the privacy and security regulations of HIPAA, which require them to ensure the confidentiality and security of patient PHI. RBH handles a high volume of fax communication containing patient’s confidential healthcare information received from behavioral health practitioners and facilities. The bulk of the content is related to describing a patient’s treatment plan, which can be a large document of up to 20 faxed pages. As part of the benefits administration process, RBH was grappling with the management of banks of fax machines and fax lines, how to handle busy signals on the receiving fax machine, and misrouting of faxes to the wrong reviewer.
“It was critical to move from traditional faxing to secure electronic fax delivery because we deal with patients’ Protected Healthcare Information,” said Mark Lenetsky, Operations Manager for RBH. “Tumbleweed’s e-mail firewall allows us to not only secure the delivery of confidential patient faxes but get it to the right person at the right time.”
Working with J2’s eFax electronic faxing service, Tumbleweed is able to secure fax communications containing PHI between the receiving fax machine and the appropriate RBH reviewer. Faxes containing PHI are captured electronically and parsed by eFax, then encrypted by Tumbleweed’s MMS e-mail firewall and forwarded to a “master inbox” where the faxes are manually reviewed and sent to the appropriate reviewers’ inboxes.
About the Tumbleweed’s MMS E-mail Firewall
The Tumbleweed MMS e-mail firewall is rated by Information Security Magazine as the #1 e-mail firewall software for large enterprises, and is currently in use at over 400 of the largest, most demanding messaging infrastructures in the world. Tumbleweed MMS is an enterprise-class e-mail firewall for protecting, filtering and securing e-mail traffic at the Internet gateway. MMS manages the organization’s mission-critical e-mail stream with an integrated set of anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-hacker, content filtering, e-mail relay, and encrypted messaging capabilities – minimizing e-mail communications risks and reducing e-mail management costs. The optional MMS Secure Redirect module allows enterprises to automatically identify and selectively encrypt e-mail containing PHI, delivering the industry’s broadest set of secure delivery options to ensure ease of use and rapid adoption, regardless of what e-mail client users have on their desktops. The Tumbleweed MMS e-mail firewall is available in both appliance and software editions.
“Tumbleweed is always striving to help our healthcare customers find innovative ways to serve their patients and comply with HIPAA regulations,” said Dave Jevans, Sr. VP of Marketing for Tumbleweed. “This partnership with J2’s eFax system is a particularly efficient way to avoid the hassles and inherent insecurity associated with faxed documents.”
About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of mission-critical Internet communications software products for enterprises, financial services organizations and government. By making Internet communications secure, reliable and automated, Tumbleweed’s e-mail firewall, secure file transfer, secure e-mail, and identity validation solutions help customers significantly reduce the cost of doing business. Tumbleweed products are used by millions of end-users and tens of thousands of corporations. Tumbleweed customers include ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), St. Luke’s Episcopal Healthcare System, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Navy and Marine Corps. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com or call 650-216-2000.
SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the use of Tumbleweed’s products and services, security of those products and services and their ability to interact with other products. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “potential,” “continue,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed June 4, 2003, and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed August 14, 2003.
Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release, which represents the Company’s expectations only as of the date of this release and should not be viewed as a statement about the Company’s expectations after such date. Although this release may remain available on the Company’s Web site or elsewhere, its continued availability does not indicate that the Company is reaffirming or confirming any of the information contained herein.