HIPPA compliant fax is one of the most common ways the question is typed, and the search engines forgive it, but the law is HIPAA: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, passed in 1996, whose Privacy and Security Rules govern how a practice and its vendors handle protected health information. The spelling changes nothing about the obligation. Whoever is searching for a HIPPA fax or a HIPPA compliant online fax needs the same thing as everyone else on this site: a vendor whose plan states a business associate agreement and whose storage meets the rules. This page is written for that reader.
What the acronym stands for, and why the fax vendor cares
HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Its Privacy Rule limits how protected health information may be used and disclosed, its Security Rule sets safeguards for electronic copies, and its business associate provisions extend both to any vendor that handles the information on a covered entity's behalf. An online fax vendor stores every page it sends or receives for a practice, which makes it a business associate and obliges it to sign an agreement accepting the rules. The misspelling matters only in one place: a vendor page that prints HIPPA rather than HIPAA is a hint that nobody who understands the obligation wrote it, and the index quotes what a page actually says.
What a HIPAA compliant online fax has to provide
A signed business associate agreement for the plan the practice buys. Encryption of the stored pages. Individual logins for each member of staff, so an access log means something. A retention setting the practice controls, so inbound faxes do not sit on the vendor's servers indefinitely. And a delivery path that does not dump a PDF into an unprotected mailbox. Two vendors print the BAA beside their prices: WestFax prints a signed BAA on every plan including Solo at $14.99 a month with 500 pages, and eFax's Business plan card prints HIPAA compliance with a Business Associate Agreement on an offer starting at $14.99. The index lists Fax.Plus, CocoFax, iFax and Documo in the same class on their own compliance statements.
The prices, so the spelling is the only thing you get wrong
By printed entry price the HIPAA class runs from Fax.Plus at $6.99 a month with 200 pages and $0.10 per extra page, through CocoFax at $9.99 with 60 pages, iFax at $12.49 with 200 pages and WestFax at $14.99 with 500 pages and a 3¢ overage, to Documo at $25 a month billed annually with 300 pages and $0.15 per additional page. A practice should match its monthly page count to an allowance first and look at the entry price second, because the overage is where a low headline price becomes the most expensive plan on the list. Each figure is the vendor's own, read on the date the index shows beside it.
Questions people ask about hippa compliant fax
Is HIPPA a different law from HIPAA?
No. HIPPA is a misspelling. There is one law, HIPAA, and its rules on business associates are what make a fax vendor's BAA necessary.
Will a vendor sign a BAA for a one-person practice?
WestFax prints a signed BAA on every plan including its Solo plan. Others may reserve it for higher tiers; ask before paying and get the answer in writing.
Does HIPAA apply to a patient faxing their own records?
No. HIPAA binds covered entities and their business associates, not individuals handling their own information. The practice receiving the fax is bound once it has it.