This is intended to reduce healthcare fraud and abuse, but HIPAA also serves to improve efficiency in the healthcare industry and to improve the portability of health insurance. In 1996, HIPAA created national standards that protect sensitive patient information and prevent it from being shared or disclosed without the patient’s consent. The more hoops there are to jump through, the more doors that may unintentionally be left open for breaches. On top of that, the paper fax then needs to be filed or shredded. Not to mention, it simply isn’t efficient to create an electronic graphic image (a fax) from an electronic file, just to put that information back into a different electronic filing system. With all fax machines using the same protocol, paired with how easily documents can be intercepted by the unintended group, faxes are no longer secure enough for PHI and it’s time to start looking for alternative solutions. Although faxing is immune to spam and other viruses which can create an insecure environment, other factors like human error and dialing the wrong phone number are very common problems and will cause sensitive information to be sent to the wrong party. Using a fax machine doesn’t give you the opportunity to collaborate with others which is typically necessary for delivering health information and patient care.

The use of faxing for sharing of Protected Health Information (PHI) has been around for a long time, however with new technologies, faxing has become outdated and more inconvenient to use. End-to-end email encryption and data protection is a great alternative to traditional faxing. Not only do faxes pose an issue for information security, but healthcare industry breaches are increasing drastically year over year, and health information is highly sought after data for hackers, which makes it even more important to safeguard. Although there have been many advances in technology in the healthcare industry, fax has remained a primary mode of communication and transfer of information even though it’s not the most secure or HIPAA-compliant way of doing so.

Alternative to faxdocument