HIPAA compliant video conferencing
General-purpose meeting tools used for clinical conversations. The live call is rarely the problem; recordings, transcripts and AI summaries are.
A telehealth visit looks like the simplest thing in this category to get right, and the live video stream usually is. The trouble sits in everything that has grown up around the call: cloud recording, automatic transcripts, AI-generated meeting summaries, in-meeting chat, and the shared file links that outlive the appointment. Those are separate features with separate storage, and vendors do not always place them inside the same agreement as the meeting itself.
The second trap is the plan tier. Free consumer accounts are commonly ineligible even when the paid version of the identical product is covered, and staff who already use the free version personally will keep doing so unless they are told otherwise. A usable product in this category names its eligible plans plainly, says whether recordings and AI features are in or out, and gives an administrator control over how long recordings are kept.
7 video conferencing tools compared
6 of 7 can be used with patient information under a signed agreement; 1 should not be used with it at all. Each row is drawn from that vendor’s published documentation as read on the date shown — open an entry for the full conditions and sources.
| Vendor | Verdict | Agreement and plan | How to get it | Not covered | Reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google MeetGoogle Meet in Google Workspace | Conditional | A Google Workspace or Cloud Identity subscription. No minimum edition is published. | Super administrator → Admin console → Account settings → Legal and compliance → accept the amendment. | Meet used from a free personal Google account. | |
| GoTo MeetingGoTo Meeting | Yes | GoTo Meeting for Healthcare, North America only. The addendum itself is published as part of GoTo's standard terms. | Nothing to request — GoTo's addendum is self-executing through the published terms. A countersigned sample is available through GoTo's trust resource center for practices that need a document on file. | Meeting recordings and in-meeting chat — the Healthcare plan disables both rather than covering them. | |
| Microsoft TeamsMicrosoft Teams | Conditional | Applies by default to business and government Online Services customers. Microsoft frames coverage per service, not per plan. | Nothing to request. Download the agreement from the Service Trust Portal for your records. | Any Microsoft service not named on the in-scope table for your environment. | |
| WherebyWhereby Embedded | Conditional | Embedded Enterprise (included), or the Build plan with the HIPAA compliance add-on. Not available on the free tier. | Through your Whereby contact, who provides the ready-to-sign agreement; Whereby will alternatively review a customer-supplied agreement. | Any feature that uses Whereby-provided storage — Whereby states flatly that none of it is considered HIPAA compliant. | |
| Zoho MeetingZoho Meeting | Conditional | None stated on either Zoho HIPAA page. | Email legal@zohocorp.com to request Zoho's business associate agreement template. | Any Zoho service the executed agreement does not name — the agreement, not the website, defines scope. | |
| ZoomZoom Workplace (Meetings, Webinars, Zoom Phone) | Conditional | Paid plans — Pro, Business, Business Plus, Enterprise. Pro can self-serve; Business and above go through Zoom Sales. | Zoom web portal → Plans and Billing → Plan Management → 'Business Associate Agreement (US only)' → Enable → Proceed. New Pro purchases can choose the US Agreement (BAA) option at checkout. | Zoom's free Basic plan — only paid plans are listed as eligible. | |
| FaceTimeFaceTime | No | No agreement offered | — | Everything. Apple's FaceTime privacy disclosure makes no HIPAA representation and offers no agreement on any Apple product tier. |
What to check before you adopt one
- Ask whether cloud recording and automatic transcripts are covered by the same agreement as the live meeting, and where those recordings are stored and for how long.
- Confirm that AI meeting summaries and note-taking assistants are inside scope, since several vendors hold AI features back from healthcare accounts without naming which ones.
- Check that the plan you are actually paying for is eligible, because free and entry tiers of otherwise-covered products are frequently excluded.
- Look at the waiting room, passcode and admission controls, since keeping the next patient out of the current visit is your responsibility rather than the vendor's.
- Find out whether in-meeting chat, file transfer and any shared whiteboard are treated as part of the covered meeting or as separate products.
The expensive mistake
Recording visits before deciding where the recordings go. A practice turns on cloud recording for documentation, then finds months later that the files sat in an ineligible account, were transcribed by a feature outside the agreement, or were kept far longer than its own records policy allows. Settle recording and retention before the first appointment.
Tracking which of these your organization uses?
The vendor and BAA register keeps every tool that touches patient information, its agreement status and its renewal date in one place — seeded from this research. See pricing.
Information, not certification and not legal advice. Each entry reflects that vendor’s published documentation as read on the date shown on its page. Vendors change terms without notice — confirm anything you rely on directly with them.