Medical Transcription: Using Fax and Email the HIPAA Way

Fax machine and email are the important communication tools of the medical transcription company.The medical transcription service provider receives the voice file and sends back the transcribed report through email. The Fax machine provides quick communication solutions and makes it easy to quickly send and recieve the information. Hence both email and Fax play a significant role in managing well, the communication needs of the office. The HIPAA law makes it mandatory for all the covered entities and their business associates like medical transcription company to install HIPAA compliant Fax. The emails should be encrypted so that the health information of patients is not leaked out or exposed to unauthorized people during the transmission process.

Employing HIPAA compliant Fax

The Fax machine should sport such features, which make the transmission in and out of the system completely safe. The features are:

• No copy of received fax should be saved.
• The Fax should have inbuilt copier, so a document is not moved to other Photostat machine for making copies. This eliminates the risk of patient information leakage.
• Fax machine should be kept is safe area and should be accessed by authorized personnel only. The fax numbers should be properly saved and the speed dialing option should used to prevent any wrong dialing. This ensures that the Fax document reaches the intended receiver.

The medical transcription company should have in place a proper back up plan in case the protected health information is faxed to wrong place.

Email Encryption

Email plays a critical role in the daily communication needs of the  
medical transcription company. But it is vulnerable during its' transit or storage through the server. to hacking as it lacks proper security features. It is necessary for the medical transcription company to encrypt the emails before sending it to the intended receiver. Once encrypted it becomes impossible for the hacker to obtain the sensitive data because it appears as series of codes which do not make any sense. The intended receiver however has a key which is used to decrypt the email back to original form.

Thus the confidential patient health information can be easily transmitted via email in a secure way as per HIPAA norms.Fax and email provide offer a quick and easy mode of communication. But at same time it is necessary to place all the requisite safeguards in them so that unauthorized access is completely prevented.

HIPAA compliant Fax and email enable safe transaction of patient health information.