HIPAA Compliance & Faxing

The primary objective of HIPAA is that health organizations have the infrastructure and procedures – administrative, technical and physical – that allow them to safeguard patient health information from any kind of exposure or disclosure to unauthorized parties when this information is required to be transmitted or delivered to authorized individuals.

HIPAA does not prohibit the use of fax machines to communicate PHI; however the information is subject to strict regulations that protect the privacy and security of the information both at the point of dispatch, during transit and at the point of delivery.

The security provisions of HIPAA require “reasonable” efforts to make sure that the information delivery via fax has been sent securely and was received securely and by the person intended.

HIPAA makes a number of demands to ensure that patient health information is properly protected. These, in relation to security and privacy, include:

•All fax machines are to be placed in a secure area and are not generally accessible.
•Only authorized personnel are to have access and security measures should be provided to ensure that this occurs.
•Destination numbers are verified before transmission
•Recipients are notified that they have been sent a fax.
•Include a cover-sheet clearly stating that the fax contains confidential health information, is being sent with the patient’s authorization, should not be passed on to other parties without express consent; and should be destroyed if not received by the intended recipient.
•Any patient data should be in the fax body and not in any of the data fields.
•Faxes are to be sent to secure destinations; i.e., the fax machine of the recipient must be in a secure location, accessible only by those authorized to receive the information.
•Maintain a copy of the confirmation sheet of the fax transmission, including the necessary data such as time and recipient’s number.
•Confirm fax delivery by phoning the recipient.
•Received faxes are to be stored in a secure location.
•Maintain transmission and transaction log summaries.