Table of Contents
Send an Encrypted Email in Outlook Desktop
Send an Encrypted Email in Outlook Web
Reading an encrypted message

Encrypting Email to send protected health information (PHI) should ONLY be used when there is no other way for you to send PHI that is accessible to your correspondent and your correspondent is not a patient or the correspondence does not belong in the patient chart.

Encrypted email does not have readable text, attachments, or images. The email must be decrypted first, and once the recipient's identity was successfully verified, they can see the  full message.

Send an Encrypted Email in Outlook Desktop

• Compose an email in Outlook Desktop (with or without attachment)
• In the email message window, choose Options (1), select Encrypt (2) and pick Encrypt-Only (3)
• An "Encrypt-only" message (4) will appear above the Send button to confirm that the email is encrypted.
• Send (5) your message.

Send an Encrypted Email in Outlook Web

• Compose an email in Outlook Web (with or without attachment)
• In the email message window, choose Options (1), select Encrypt (2) and pick Encrypt- (3) from the drop-down menu.
• An "Encrypt" message (4) will appear above the Send button to confirm that the email is encrypted.
• Please note that you have the option to check "Request delivery receipt" and/or "Request read receipt" (5) here as well.
• Send your message.

Reading an encrypted message

• The user will receive the email in their inbox and it looks like this:

• When clicking "Read the message", they will be presented with different options to verify their identity:

• One way to read an encrypted message from desktop/browser/mobile app is to choose "Sign in with a One-time passcode" (details below). For details on all options to read an encrypted message with Outlook, Gmail or single-use code please visit "How do I open a protected message?" Microsoft page.

Reading a protected message with a single-use code

• Click "Sign in with a One-time passcode"
• This page will open:

• Go to email to retrieve the passcode > Enter the passcode on the page above and click "Continue".
• Once the identity was successfully verified, you can see the message: