See also: Video: HIPAA-Compliant Email Services at LuxSci

Performing daily business transactions through electronic technologies is an accepted, reliable and necessary tool across the nation’s healthcare sectors. Therefore, electronic communications have become a standard in the healthcare industry as a way to conduct business activities that commonly include:

• Interacting with web-savvy patients;
• Real time authorizations for medical services;
• Transcribing, accessing and storing health records;
• Appointment scheduling; and
• Submitting claims to health plan payers for payment of the services provided.

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LuxSci offers solutions for secure and HIPAA compliant email and web services,  so we are often asked about secure FAXing.

Many organizations, especially in the healthcare industry, have an urgent need to send important and sensitive information, like protected health information (PHI), to  organizations via facsimile. Why?  Because this is how it has always been done, and everyone is “set up” to be able to handle FAXes quickly and efficiently.

However, with HIPAA security regulations ever-present, our clients are concerned that their use of FAX is compliant, similar to making sure that their email and web sites meet HIPAA security standards.

Update – for electronic FAXing options, see: HIPAA Faxing: How to Send and Receive FAXes i na Secure and Compliant Way.

Can data sent via FAX be “secure enough” for HIPAA?

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Doctors and medical professionals are feeling a growing pressure to get their business online (i.e. even use of electronic prescriptions is being pushed).  This includes making available protected health information to patients via a web site and collecting similar private information from patients or would-be patients. If doctors can show that they are using digital systems with their health care practices in a meaningful way by 2011, they may be eligible for some serious money (part of the proposed stimulus package — the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH)).

However, where the health information of an identifiable individual is involved, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the official compliance document.  So, what do these requirements mean and how can HIPAA be followed in the context of a website?

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