Network Faxing and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Taking measures to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) can become an opportunity for health care organizations to review, update and improve existing and sometimes outdated information systems. Implementing appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards (section 45CFR164.530) to protect patient health information and support HIPAA objectives can lead not only to a new standard of privacy and security, but to a new standard of efficiency and workflow and, frequently, a positive return on the investment in HIPAA compliance as well.

For most companies in the health care industry, the decision to move to computer-based, network faxing is a logical extension of updating the existing medical record system to comply with HIPAA regulations. HIPAA's privacy and security rules regarding patient health data integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility include recommendations for access to and use of fax machines. Once the rest of the organization's information systems are updated and secured, standalone fax machines become arguably the weakest link in the communications chain. It becomes difficult to imagine how to adequately ensure the privacy and security of patient health-related documents sent through standalone fax machines, especially considering the thousands of documents most health care organizations typically fax in a month.

Standalone fax machines are impractical at best with regard to HIPAA's physical and data security requirements for health information transactions. To comply with HIPAA's guidelines, standalone fax machines would need to be relocated to secured areas, then strict access policies and labor-intensive distribution procedures, with only a few fax-authorized employees, would have to be set and enforced across the enterprise. Even with strict access and distribution safeguards in place, any system relying on manual faxing will still be more labor-intensive, error-prone and at risk for non-compliance than a system using computer-based, network faxing.

The possibility of misplaced medical records, always a very real concern with the handling of hard copies during manual faxing, doesn't exist with the FaxPress and FaxPress Premier. Easily implemented and integrated with electronic medical record systems, Castelle's FaxPress and FaxPress Premier fax servers can play a valuable role in supporting HIPAA objectives, offering a standardized, enterprise-wide faxing solution, and helping to maintain a high standard of security, efficiency and organization. Moving from manual faxing on standalone fax machines to computer-based, network faxing with a Castelle FaxPress or FaxPress Premier fax server can address all of your fax-related HIPAA compliance issues, and also has the potential to be one of the more cost-effective, productivity-enhancing improvements available to your organization.

Castelle's network fax servers send and receive fax jobs less expensively, and with more security, accuracy and potential for ROI than any standalone fax machine. Sending a fax with a Castelle FaxPress or FaxPress Premier fax server offers a degree of privacy and security unavailable with standalone fax machines, and takes less than one tenth of the time sending a fax manually does. In fact, the higher your fax volume, the more money, time, and manpower a FaxPress or FaxPress Premier server will save you. In some cases, FaxPress and FaxPress Premier fax servers have provided unanticipated returns on investment, even enabling Castelle customers to grow their businesses - expand their client base, for example - without ever having to hire additional staff. And, at no additional expense, FaxPress and FaxPress Premier users can be added at any time; Castelle's server-based rather than per-user based licensing allows an unlimited number of users.