Protected Health Information (PHI) Security
Protecting PHI is essential in today’s healthcare landscape. A Protected Health Information (PHI) breach is any situation where PHI is used or disclosed in a way that violates HIPAA regulations, compromising its privacy or security. Essentially, it’s unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of PHI that puts the information at risk.
Types of PHI Breaches:
- Secure faxes: Sometimes, secure fax transmissions can include the wrong patient charts or unrequested records. Fax numbers should be verified prior to sending to ensure the correct recipient.
- Unencrypted emails: All emails containing PHI must be encrypted to ensure protection of PHI.
- Unintentional breaches: These occur when there is unintentional access to PHI in good faith while performing one’s job, and such access does not result in further impermissible use or disclosure.
- Inadvertent disclosures: These happen when PHI is unintentionally disclosed by a person authorized to access PHI at a covered entity or business associate to another person not authorized to receive it.
- Improperly disclosed information: This includes situations where PHI is improperly disclosed, but the covered entity or business associate believes in good faith that the recipient of the unauthorized information would not be able to retain the information. This also includes improper maintenance of records.
- Unauthorized review of healthcare records: Accessing the health records of patients for reasons other than those permitted by the HIPAA Privacy Rule is a violation of patient privacy.
KDJ Consultants uses a secure fax server for all fax transmissions. This ensures that even if someone faxes us incorrect patient data, it is always secure. We verify all fax numbers prior to transmission to ensure faxes reach the intended recipient. The availability of a secure portal provides another secure option for providers and clients to drop records to KDJ Consultants if unable to fax. We take the security of all sensitive information seriously.
KDJ Consultants takes pride in protecting client data through extensive network security, data encryption, strong security policies and procedures, and a team committed to following those procedures.
~Melissa Buchanan