Google Meet is free, familiar, and clients already know how to use it — so it's natural to wonder whether you can run therapy sessions on it. The honest answer: Meet can be HIPAA-compliant, but the version most people use is not. The difference comes down to which Google account you're on, one agreement you have to accept, and a handful of settings. This guide walks through all of it in plain English.
The short answer
Google will sign a Business Associate Agreement (they call it a Business Associate Addendum, or BAA) — but only for paid Google Workspace accounts. A free personal Gmail account cannot get a BAA, which means free Google Meet is not HIPAA-compliant for therapy sessions, no matter how secure the call itself is. If you've been meeting clients from your personal Google account, that's the gap to close first. (If you're new to why the BAA is the deciding factor, our video tools comparison explains it in two minutes.)
What has to be true for Meet to be compliant
- A paid Google Workspace plan. Business-tier Workspace plans (the kind with a custom email domain) are eligible for Google's BAA. Free accounts are not.
- The BAA actually accepted. Paying for Workspace isn't enough — an administrator has to formally accept the HIPAA Business Associate Addendum in the Admin console. Until that's done, nothing is covered.
- Sensible configuration. Even with the BAA in place, you're expected to use the covered services carefully: restrict who can record, keep PHI out of calendar invites and meeting titles, and lock down file sharing.
How to accept Google's BAA (5 minutes)
If you're on a paid Workspace plan, here's the path: sign in to the Google Admin console as the administrator, then go to Account → Account Settings → Legal & Compliance. Under "Security and Privacy Additional Terms," find the Google Workspace HIPAA Business Associate Addendum, review it, and accept. Google asks a few confirmation questions about your compliance obligations, and then the covered services — including Meet — fall under the agreement. Keep a record of the date you accepted it.
The settings that still matter after the BAA
- Meeting titles and invites. A calendar invite that says "Therapy — Jane D., depression follow-up" leaks PHI before the session even starts. Use neutral titles and keep clinical details out of invitations entirely.
- Recording. Simplest compliant choice: don't record sessions. If you must, restrict recording permissions and understand where recordings are stored and for how long.
- Access control. Keep "quick access" off so clients knock to enter, and never reuse a personal meeting link across clients.
- Consent first. Before any video session, capture the client's telehealth consent — our telehealth consent guide covers what to include.
Where Meet falls short for a therapy practice
Even configured perfectly, Meet is a general-purpose meeting tool. It doesn't know who your client is, which appointment the call belongs to, or whether consent is on file. That means you're stitching together Workspace, a calendar, reminder emails, notes, and billing yourself — and every seam is a place where PHI can slip into the wrong system. It works, but you become the integration.
The simpler path
A practice platform built for therapy keeps the video link attached to the appointment, the notes attached to the client, and the reminders deliberately PHI-free — under one BAA instead of several. Theraflow includes HIPAA-conscious telehealth, scheduling, notes, and billing with a BAA included in the flat $29.99/month plan, so there's no agreement to hunt down and no settings checklist to maintain.
Bottom line
Is Google Meet HIPAA-compliant for therapy? Only on a paid Workspace plan, with the BAA accepted in the Admin console, and with recording, invites, and access configured carefully. Free Meet from a personal Gmail: no. If you'd rather not manage that checklist, use a tool where compliance is the default rather than a configuration.
Related reading: Is Zoom HIPAA-compliant for therapy?, Is FaceTime HIPAA-compliant for therapy? and HIPAA-compliant telehealth for therapists.