Home Health & Hospice Week

If you mess up on what’s PHI and what isn’t, the price tag may be steep.

A thriving social media presence can be a boon to your market share — but not if it’s putting your agency at risk of violating HIPAA. A thorough knowledge of what exactly constitutes patients’ protected health information (PHI) is essential to understanding how to protect it — and your home health or hospice agency.

Definition: PHI is best defined as “all ‘individually identifiable health information’ held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate, in any form or media, whether electronic, paper, or oral,” reminds the HHS Office for Civil Rights in its Privacy Rule guidance.

For instance, to avoid a HIPAA Privacy Rule violation — especially concerning what should not be disclosed on social media sites — it’s a good idea to know what “individually identifiable health information” refers to. Here are 18 things that the HIPAA Privacy Rule identifies as PHI:

1. Name
2. Address
3. Birth date and other corresponding dates of admission, discharge, death, etc.
4. Landline and cellphone numbers
5. Fax numbers
6. Email addresses
7. Social Security Number
8. Medical record number
9. Health plan beneficiary number (i.e. Medicare Beneficiary Identifier)
10. Account number
11. State identification or license number
12. Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers
13. Device identifiers and serial numbers
14. URLs
15. IP addresses
16. Biometric identifiers like finger or voice prints
17. Photo or image of patient, specifically the face
18. Any other unique code, characteristic, image, or number that identifies the individual.

Reminder: If one of these 18 identifiers is included in a chat, an email, a social media post, a text, or any other kind of communication, you are revealing “identifiable” information. But the use and disclosure of “de-identified” health information is OK.

Why: According to OCR guidance, “de-identified health information neither identifies nor provides a reasonable basis to identify an individual,” and it’s often passed two criteria. First, it’s been verified by a “qualified statistician;” and second, all “specified identifiers” have been removed, including employer and family information, indicates OCR.

Note: Review the Privacy Rule summary and more in-depth details on the identifiers and de-identification online at www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-regulations/index.html.