I mean as long as they aren't sending protected health information it really isn't a HIPAA violation. We use an encrypted pager at my clinic, but that's just because the hospitals guidelines are stricter than HIPAAs. For what we and most providers still use pagers for nowadays could be done over an unencrypted network. Most of the time it's just to call us to a certain room number. It's not like people really have the patience to type out words using two buttons at more.

By the time I stopped working there they were using an app that had an E2E encrypted connection to the medical records system so they could actually even get test results and such as texts. The instances I was describing happened in the early days of iMessage right as we were starting the upgrade of the pager system. Most of the problem doctors had recently finished residencies or internships at hospitals that had already upgraded.

Eh, I still have a pager and so do a lot of other people in hospitals. It's mainly because most hospitals have locations that eat cell phone reception.

I dont think ots the SMS itself that breaks HIPPA but rather the device which is commonly used to send SMS. most peoole use their cell phones for SMS purposes and cells phones do have some secret recording capabulities if youre savvy enough with them.