PHI is health information in any form, including physical records, electronic records, or spoken information. Therefore, PHI includes health records, health histories, lab test results, and medical bills. Essentially, all health information is considered PHI when it includes individual identifiers.
What is considered PHI under Hipaa?
Under HIPAA, protected health information is considered to be individually identifiable information relating to the past, present, or future health status of an individual that is created, collected, or transmitted, or maintained by a HIPAA-covered entity in relation to the provision of healthcare, payment for
What are examples of PHI?
Examples of PHI
- Patient names.
- Addresses — In particular, anything more specific than state, including street address, city, county, precinct, and in most cases zip code, and their equivalent geocodes.
- Dates — Including birth, discharge, admittance, and death dates.
- Telephone and fax numbers.
- Email addresses.
What is considered PHI in EMR?
PHI stands for Protected Health Information and is any information in a medical record that can be used to identify an individual, and that was created, used, or disclosed in the course of providing a health care service, such as a diagnosis or treatment.
Is patient name alone considered PHI?
Pursuant to 45 CFR 160.103, PHI is considered individually identifiable health information. A strict interpretation and an “on-the-face-of-it” reading would classify the patient name alone as PHI if it is in any way associated with the hospital.
What are the 3 rules of HIPAA?
The HIPAA rules and regulations consists of three major components, the HIPAA Privacy rules, Security rules, and Breach Notification rules.
Does HIPAA apply to everyone?
HIPAA does not protect all health information. Nor does it apply to every person who may see or use health information. HIPAA only applies to covered entities and their business associates.
Is blood type PHI?
A hospital maintains data of its employees, which could comprise certain health details such as allergies or blood type, but HIPAA doesn’t cover occupation records nor education records. PHI likewise stops being considered PHI under HIPAA if all identifiers that can link the data to a person are removed.
What are examples of HIPAA violations?
Most Common HIPAA Violation Examples
- 1) Lack of Encryption.
- 2) Getting Hacked OR Phished.
- 3) Unauthorized Access.
- 4) Loss or Theft of Devices.
- 5) Sharing Information.
- 6) Disposal of PHI.
- 7) Accessing PHI from Unsecured Location.
Is patient age considered PHI?
PHI is any individually identifying health information, categorized into 18 patient identifiers under HIPAA. Dates related to the health or identity of individuals (including birthdates, date of admission, date of discharge, date of death, or exact age of a patient older than 89) Telephone numbers.
Who may have access to PHI?
The Privacy Rule generally requires HIPAA covered entities (health plans and most health care providers) to provide individuals, upon request, with access to the protected health information (PHI) about them in one or more “designated record sets” maintained by or for the covered entity.
Is IP address considered PHI?
It may be surprising that some of these items are PHI, such as IP addresses, however, the above-listed items are considered “individually identifiable health information.” This means that the information can be directly tied back to a specific patient.
Is a doctor’s name considered PHI?
Examples of PHI include: Billing information from a doctor or clinic. Email to a doctor’s office about a medication or prescription. Any record containing both a person’s name and name of that person’s medical provider.
Can you talk about a patient without saying their name?
HIPAA violation: yes. However, even without mentioning names one must keep in mind if a patient can identify themselves in what you write about this may be a violation of HIPAA.
What is not protected under Hipaa?
The HIPAA Privacy Rule also places restrictions on the allowable uses and disclosures of PHI. Deidentified protected health information is not protected by HIPAA Rules. This is healthcare information that has been stripped of all identifiers that would allow an individual to be identified.