Cloud Faxing

Faxing still has a place within many healthcare organizations, providing an effective way to send and receive protected health information (PHI). However, there’s recently been a shift to cloud-based secure fax services, allowing for improved usability and security of that shared information.

Healthcare providers must choose a fax provider carefully guaranteeing the security of PHI at all times, while also ensuring providers and staff have access to and can operate the system easily. Cloud-based faxing allows users to easily transmit data in a digital format through a secure internet connection using high-level encryption, real-time data transfers, and other capabilities.

Here are some things people in the medical industry need to know about how to choose a secure fax service.

How Online Fax Services Work

“The cloud” is any software or service provided over the internet; a cloud fax service replaces physical fax machine or on-premises fax server with internet-based, outsourced service options. A dedicated phone line or fax machine isn’t necessary with cloud-based faxing, nor does it need an on-premises fax server that requires system maintenance and/or upgrades with internal IT staff involvement.

Instead, cloud faxing takes a digital file and sends it with a special email address that includes the recipient’s fax number, or provides an easy-to-use web interface. The service provider converts uploaded documents into the proper format, encrypts them, and sends them to the recipient. Or, when receiving, the provider converts the document into a format that’s readable and then delivers the fax.

A cloud-fax service offers 100% compliance with HIPAA and other regulations.

How To Choose an Online Fax Service

Follow these steps when choosing an online fax service:

1. Assess your needs.

First, you’ll need to know the realistic volume of faxes that will need to be sent and received. Additionally, prepare a list of fax document workflow and processing requirements so you know ahead of time what the fax service will need to provide.

2. Reach out to vendors.

Start by researching top online fax service providers and reading about their offerings, as well as investigating past and current customer reviews. Reach out to the top vendors for more information.

Ask for representative to explain all included features and how they handle customer service needs, and ensure the product meets your needs. At this time, you can evaluate both their product and customer service.

3. Understand cost and fees.

Hidden fees and unexpected costs can make budgeting difficult, so ask about overall pricing and any other charges you could face throughout the contract.

4. Request a demo.

Most providers offer a free product demonstration or trial period, so take advantage of this. Test the service before you finalize the purchase to see how it works and better understand if it will work for your needs. For example, is it user friendly? Does it provide necessary features and capabilities for managing your faxing and document control needs? Does it integrate with your back-office document workflows? What is the capacity and performance?

You should also ask about additional tools that can integrate with your current technology or other features the service offers (such as custom cover sheets, delivery to network folder, broadcast faxing, preset delivery times, or folder-based faxing).

5. Make sure the secure fax service is HIPAA-compliant.

Ask vendor about whether their product is HIPAA compliant and what features are in place such as:

• Control over access to customer PHI.
• Data encryption during transmission and while at rest in the cloud.
• Cybersecurity insurance coverage.
• Finding and protecting against anticipated cybersecurity threats and information theft.

Ultimately, the service should take steps to guarantee all PHI availability, integrity, and confidentiality.

Additionally, ask the vendor if they can share their Annual SOC 2 Type II audit report and Application Penetration Test report with you. Also ensure they would sign Business Associate Agreement (BAA).

Benefits A HIPAA-Complaint Fax Service Should Have

Cloud faxing, or online faxing, has a variety of benefits including greater flexibility, security, and efficiency. For example, cloud-based fax services:

• Provide secure transmission. Criminals cannot hack into a fax to steal data, and even if it is somehow hacked or intercepted, the third party can’t read it without conversion by an authorized user. Faxes deployed with data encryption can make faxes more reliable and secure, which is essential when sending and receiving PHI.
• Send a secure fax immediately. Data traveling uninterrupted from a fax sender to a recipient is less susceptible to hacking. Cloud faxing sends faxes directly to an individual, and the user who wants access must provide correct credentials. You’ll then receive confirmation that the intended recipient gets the fax.
• Keep costs down. There’s no need to purchase, operate, or maintain a separate fax machine or on-premises fax server, or have a dedicated phone line. You’ll save internal IT staff time because there isn’t an on-premises fax server or network systems. Cloud faxing also reduces paper waste.
• Are easy to use. Managing incoming and outgoing faxes is as simple as having access to a computer or mobile device and internet connection – no other equipment is required. Immediate service activation doesn’t require a long lead time, and user-friendly online tools allow you to send and receive faxes anywhere.

Plus, Softlinx also offers a customer web portal with comprehensive fax administration features, making managing fax users and secure fax activities easy.

Enhance productivity. Using a cloud fax service streamlines healthcare fax workflows and significantly simplifies faxing tasks. This helps staff work more efficiently, eliminating challenges like managing junk faxes or dealing with paperwork, refilling paper or ink, or other maintenance.

Trust Softlinx with Secure HIPAA-Compliant Faxing

Our HIPPA-complaint cloud faxing services and other solutions can help you achieve smarter document-handling protocols while protecting PHI. Request a demo today or call (800) 899-7724.

Privacy laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) play a critical role in the healthcare industry, governing how organizations handle sensitive information. If you transmit patient health information via fax, this standard applies to you.

This guide will discuss how privacy laws affect faxing and how to ensure HIPAA compliance with faxes.

What Is HIPAA?

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is a federal law passed in 1996 to protect sensitive patient health information. Based on this law, national standards were established to prevent health information from being disclosed without patient knowledge or consent.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services enforced the requirements of HIPAA by issuing the HIPAA Privacy Rule. This set of standards addresses how organizations use and transmit health information to protect the privacy of those who seek care. These guidelines aim to protect patients’ health information by setting use limitations while still allowing for high-quality healthcare delivery.

How Does HIPAA Impact Faxing?

While most individuals don’t associate HIPAA and faxing with one another, these terms share a crucial connection. If you work in healthcare, you likely transfer sensitive patient information using faxes. HIPAA laws require that you protect this data during utilization and disclosure, which includes faxing.

The majority of healthcare offices use faxes to transmit patient information. If any of these facilities send sensitive information to the wrong recipient, they can incur serious HIPAA penalties for noncompliance. That’s why healthcare organizations must use fax solutions optimized for HIPAA compliance to minimize the risk of accidental disclosure.

HIPAA-compliant faxing solutions have security features like data encryption, page-by-page confirmation and real-time data transfer. These safeguards prevent patient information from being compromised or misdirected.

The Difference Between Meeting HIPAA Regulations With Online Fax Versus Traditional On-Premises Fax

Healthcare providers that use traditional on-premises fax solutions experience difficulty meeting HIPAA compliance standards due to the many security challenges posed by these outdated technologies. With advanced online fax solutions, organizations can send a HIPAA compliant fax securely and seamlessly.

Fax Machine Access

Traditional fax machines can print incoming patient health information at any time, leaving physical copies of this information temporarily unattended on the printer. This lack of access control can pose serious patient privacy and security risks by leaving information exposed.

Through online cloud faxing, incoming faxes are transferred to the intended recipient using their unique fax number, preventing the information from being misdirected. The patient information is also encrypted, so it can only be read by authorized individuals.

Fax Cover Sheets

All faxes containing patient health information must have a protective cover sheet as required by HIPAA. This cover sheet indicates that the document includes confidential health information and is not to be transferred to another party without express patient consent, in the absence of which it must be destroyed.

Online faxes allow you to customize your cover sheets to include all required disclosures and enforce them by department, user or across the entire organization.

Fax Transmission Records

When transmitting paper faxes, senders must create and retain confirmation copies containing transmission and transaction log summaries, along with the date, time and the recipient’s fax number. Online fax technologies take detailed records of all your fax transmissions and receipts, making report generation effortless.

Received Fax Security

Traditional on-premises faxing requires that received faxes be securely stored immediately upon removal from a physical fax device. Cloud-based faxing solutions send received faxes directly to the intended receiver’s email. Once the fax has been sent, all data and images within the fax are wiped from the faxing platform to prevent access by third parties.

How to Ensure HIPAA Compliance With Faxes From Softlinx

At Softlinx, we offer HIPAA compliant fax services to help healthcare facilities protect their patients’ sensitive health information. We’ve spent over 20 years providing our customers with innovative enterprise information technology (IT) solutions to help them optimize their document workflow processes and maximize profits.

We offer a HIPAA compliant electronic fax service called ReplixFax for the healthcare industry. This system is designed to protect confidential patient information while maintaining business continuity through safeguards such as:

• Advanced data encryption.
• Safe data transmission over secure IP networks.
• Secure centralized storage.
• Intrusion detection and prevention.
• Multifactor authentication.

ReplixFax maintains detailed logs of all faxes, retrievals, deletions and inquiries to facilitate audits. Due to our secure network, our data center is fully compliant with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), HIPAA and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) standards.

Send HIPAA Compliant Faxes With Solutions From Softlinx

You can bridge the gap between HIPAA and faxing with HIPAA compliant fax services from Softlinx. When you outsource your faxing to cloud services with us, we’ll help you leverage greater cost savings, productivity and compliance.

Schedule a free live demo to explore our solutions today!

With the advent of online faxing, sending and receiving faxes has become faster, more convenient, and environmentally friendly. Whether you’re a business professional or someone who occasionally sends a fax, online faxing can make your life easier. In this post, we will guide you through the process of learning how you can send and receive online faxes.

Sending Online Faxes

Depending on your business needs, you’ll set up one or more cloud fax user accounts.

Once you’ve created your online faxing account, you can send a fax following these steps:

Select your preferred faxing method: As a sender, you can send a fax by choosing any of the Softlinx supported outbound faxing methods that include Email-to-Fax, Web Portal, Windows Print-to-Fax or MFP faxing. Each of these methods offer an easy to use, intuitive interface that makes online faxing a no-brainer.

Entering recipient fax numbers: The first step to send a fax is to enter recipient information. At minimum you need to enter the recipient’s fax number. We support single fax number entry as well as group list from our fax phone book. In addition, broadcast and mail merge faxing are supported for you to send a fax to multiple recipients.

Selecting a fax cover page: You may select a fax cover page of your choice, if needed. We provide a fax cover page editor so that you may easily customize your fax cover page online.

Attaching or uploading fax files: The next step before you submit a fax job is to attach or upload fax files. To send a large fax that exceeds typical maximum file attachment size of your email system, use our web fax portal. This will allow you to send very large faxes.

Before you submit a fax job: Through our web fax portal, we support additional features such as delayed fax scheduling and status notification to alternate email address. Once you are ready, just click send to submit a secure fax request. It is that easy!

How to Receive Online Faxes Using Softlinx

Receiving a fax online from another automated fax service or traditional fax machine follows these steps:

Receiving your fax from a sender: To receive online faxes to your Softlinx cloud fax user account, you need a fax number assigned to your account first. Once your fax is received from a sender, it is converted to pdf file format. It is then kept encrypted in the system while at rest in the cloud.

Delivering a received fax: Once we receive an incoming fax, it is then delivered securely to your email inbox. Alternatively, we can also deliver it electronically to your shared network folder or a secure FTP location.

Opening the message: When you’re ready, you can open the email message with your incoming fax attached and ready to be viewed, shared and stored as any secure file would be.

Softlinx Online Cloud Faxing

With Softlinx’ Cloud Fax Service, you can send faxes directly from your business applications, via email or using the Softlinx web portals. Speak with our experts today!

Fax Over Internet Protocol (FoIP) has become one of the most popular faxing methods over the last decade. FoIP allows you to send faxes over the internet rather than using older technology that involves costly equipment and materials and unproductive operating inefficiencies. The process works much like Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, a type of phone system that uses an internet connection rather than a conventional phone line.

While both concepts are highly similar, the most significant difference is the transmission medium. VoIP uses a service provider to transmit data, while FoIP typically utilizes integrated software and email.

What Is VoIP?

VoIP takes the sounds from a phone call and breaks them down into multiple data packets. These packets travel across a local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN) or the internet. At the destination, the voice packets come together and reassemble into spoken words.

The most significant advantage of Voice Over IP is its ability to compress and converge files into a single connection. Traditional methods required multiple dedicated networks to make one transmission, leading many to adopt VoIP because of the efficiency increases and bandwidth reduction. Despite the benefits, VoIP fax transmissions are sensitive to packet loss and delays, causing problems during reassembly.

Does Voice Over IP Have Fax Capabilities?

VoIP works well for email and voice applications where a few seconds of delay or missing data might go unnoticed. However, when faxing, just a tiny percentage of packet loss can cause a VoIP connection to time out and the fax to fail.

While many businesses have tried to use VoIP for faxing purposes, it comes with many potential risks. Some short faxes may go through entirely intact, while larger ones may break up during reassembly. The other risk is dealing with the consequences when a VoIP system goes down for a lengthy period.

As a result, even though it’s entirely possible to fax using VoIP, the potential risks outweigh the benefits.

What Options Does Your Business Have?

Several solutions are available to avoid the potential pitfalls associated with VoIP faxing.

• Use a legacy system: This is not the most practical solution, but it works. Many businesses move away from these older technologies because of the high costs and inefficiencies. Legacy fax systems involve stacks of paper, filing, bulky equipment and a monthly tab for inks and toners.
• Assign a dedicated line for each fax number: If you’ve already integrated to IP successfully but struggle with faxing, you can implement individual lines for each fax number. However, this increases your costs and creates more work for your IT department.
• Migrate to a cloud fax model: Using a cloud solution to deliver faxes over IP networks is ideal because it converts your fax into an email attachment independent of the transmission technology. The attachment prevents the data from breaking up while allowing you to send and receive faxes from any electronic device with internet capabilities.

Cloud Faxing Solutions From Softlinx

Cloud-based fax solutions are highly reliable and save businesses considerable time and money. Softlinx solutions enable you to receive, send and view faxes with our easy-to-use interface and efficient faxing methods. The process allows you to fax documents with the convenience of sending a typical email.

Cloud faxing encompasses various faxing options, like:

• Email to fax.
• Web portal.
• Fax APIs.
• Print-to-fax windows client.
• Network folder.
• Multi-function printer (MFP).

When you implement our cloud-based solutions, you gain access to a system that uses the most modern encryption to provide the highest protection and security levels. The encryption stays intact until your transmission reaches the intended recipient. The cloud protects your data better than physical hardware susceptible to viruses, hackers and theft.

How to Send Online Cloud Faxes

Once you’ve set up an online faxing account with Softlinx, the rest of the process involves just a few simple steps.

• Choose your method: Each of the cloud-based faxing methods offers a simple and efficient option for transmission, whether you select web portal, email to fax, printer to fax or something else.
• Enter your recipient’s information: Sending a fax to one recipient is as easy as entering a single phone number. Our platform also allows you to send the same fax to multiple recipients. Additionally, you can organize your fax phone book to contain group listings for even quicker transmissions.
• Select a cover page: Our software enables you to use a cover page if required. The editor allows you to customize your page according to your preferences and needs.
• Attach the file: The final step before transmitting your fax involves simply uploading the fax file. Our system supports PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT and many other file formats.

Our system also offers several other features for your convenience, including delayed scheduling and status notifications.

Receiving Online Cloud Faxes Using Softlinx

Once you have a fax number set up with your account, you can start receiving faxes from legacy machines or automated fax services. When a sender sends you a fax, we keep it encrypted in the cloud until it reaches your email inbox. We can also deliver faxes to a secure FTP location or shared network folder.

When you receive the email, you can view the fax, share it or store it just like any other attachment.

Benefits of Using Softlinx Cloud Faxing Services

Several advantages that you’ll experience when using our cloud-based system include:

• Cost savings: Cloud-based faxing eliminates the expenses associated with materials, equipment and maintenance used for older technology.
• Scalability: Adding new cloud-based fax numbers costs a fraction of the price of individual analog lines. As your business grows and you add more employees, you can quickly assign them their own fax numbers.
• Enhanced security: Our fax solutions protect all transmissions with advanced encryption and cybersecurity features tailored to each sending platform.
• Improved reliability: Cloud-based faxing eliminates the hassles of waiting in line, paper jams, machine failures and temporary line outages.
• Disaster recovery: If an incident requires disaster recovery, our system offers access to previously transmitted data.
• Increased efficiency: Besides speeding up your entire faxing process, Softlinx cloud faxing reduces the burden on your IT professionals, allowing them to focus on more essential duties.

Contact Softlinx for Cloud-Based Solutions Today

Softlinx has been a worldwide leader in cloud-based fax services and other secure document delivery solutions for over two decades. Our primary goal is to provide a reliable service for our customers that maximizes their profits and increases operating efficiency. Our first-class technical support and customer service teams stand out for their dedication and expertise in the industry.

To learn more about cloud faxing and how Softlinx can help your business, fill out a quote request form, schedule a live demo or call us at (800) 899-7724 today.

There are two ways for organizations to send and receive important information electronically —  fax or email. But the convenience of sending a quick email could come with a price. Many organizations rely on email for fast transmission, but there are potential security pitfalls to sending information via the internet.

Privacy and security are the most important factors to consider when choosing between fax or email to send data. Learn more about whether you should select email or encrypted faxes to send confidential information securely.

Is Fax More Secure Than Email?

One of the significant advantages of sending and receiving protected information via email is speed. But is speed worth an insecure transmission?

Hackers have far more opportunities to intercept information sent via email over a public internet network than that in a fax sent via a phone line. Emails need to pass through servers and firewalls, leaving them vulnerable to interception and compromise from anyone with access to those servers. Unless you send the email via a private internet server, your message could be susceptible to a cyberattack — and there is no definitive way to know whether the recipient’s server is protected in the same manner.

For example, phishing is a common way hackers gain access to private email accounts. A hacker will send a legitimate-looking email with an internal link. Once the recipient opens the link, spyware, viruses or malicious software can enter the computer or mobile device. Once a hacker has access to an email address, other associated email accounts can quickly become compromised as well unless a two-factor authentication system is in place.

Is Fax Hack-Proof? 

While there is no way to completely eliminate the chance of unauthorized personnel accessing your information, there is much less chance of a fax being hacked because it delivers via a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) — not the internet. It is far easier for a hacker to invite someone to click a fraudulent link than to hack into a PSTN. And even if a hacker successfully intercepts a fax, decoding it will prove extremely challenging.

There’s also more reward to accessing an email account, whether acquiring the information inside the account or accessing other associated accounts. A single breached email account could lead to further breaches elsewhere, creating a snowball effect.

Even if an unauthorized individual intercepted a fax, they would only have access to the connected devices. In short, hackers are far less likely to go to the trouble of trying to breach the security of a fax.

Is Fax Secure?

If a covered entity uses proper technical safeguarding techniques — such as two-factor login authentication and cover sheets — sending information via fax is secure. “Faxsploit,” or fax hacking, may occur because printers and computers connect to the machine by an internet connection, but recent advancements in fax security include private servers and firewalls to mitigate this risk.

How Does Email Fall Short Regarding Security?

So, is fax safer than email? We would argue yes! In addition to email being more vulnerable to cyberattacks, sending protected information via this method has a few other disadvantages:

• Spam: Occasionally, an encrypted email might land in a spam folder or mistakenly be reported as spam by the recipient. Then, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) might block future communications from your email address.
• Tracking: Unfortunately, there is no way to track whether an email has reached its intended destination. Email is generally reliable, but user tracking is vital if you digitally send and receive healthcare-related or PCI-DSS-protected information.
• Compliance: Paper trails for federal audits are crucial if your organization handles electronic protected health information (ePHI) or PCI-DSS-protected data. Emails do not automatically track user inquiries, retrievals or deletions — nor do they maintain system logs to facilitate federal compliance.

Email vs. Fax: Which Should You Choose? 

If your organization handles sensitive financial or protected health information, you need a fast, secure and reliable electronic data transmission solution. However, an email isn’t the quickest way to transmit information, nor is a PSTN connection the most secure.

Cloud-based faxing using Fax Over Internet Protocol (FoIP) enables organizations to fax via their secure internet phone system. An internet phone system is truly secure and provides end-to-end encryption. Cloud faxing makes web-based faxing fast, reliable and safe. Most importantly, it facilitates federal compliance and information privacy.

Why Is Cloud Faxing More Secure Than Fax and Email?

Cloud faxing is safer than email thanks to its advanced security measures, and it offers several additional benefits as well:

• Compliance: Cloud-based faxes handled by an SSAE-16 audited hosting provider makes faxing easy and HIPAA and PCI-DSS-compliant.
• Privacy: When it comes to confidentiality, email falls short. Emails are vulnerable to hacking and physical faxes can fall into the wrong hands if left in the delivery tray too long. Many Cloud-based fax providers boast the benefits of secured networks, authentication procedures like multifactor authentication and AES 256-bit encryption protocols.
• Inexpensive and easy to use: With features like email-to-fax and print-to-fax, plus an intuitive web portal, cloud faxing is quick and easy. It requires no hassle, maintenance, or expenses like ink, paper and toner. All you need is a secure internet connection and a computer or mobile device.

However, not all cloud-based faxing providers boast the necessary features to facilitate the most private, secure and compliant form of faxing. When choosing a cloud fax service provider, you’ll want to check for the following:

• Password protection: Multifactor authentication will protect your faxes even if an outside party does happen to gain access to your login credentials.
• Virus scanning:  Faxes sent and received online can carry viruses just like an email, so virus and malware screening is essential.
• File encryption: Encryption defends your faxes against transmission interception, ensuring they deliver securely.
• SSL certificates: SSL certificates create a secure browser connection for a protected fax delivery using the internet.
• Standard compliance: Your cloud-based provider should be an SSAE-16 audited provider and meet the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) standards.
• System logs: Tracking helps you monitor inquiries and retrievals for a convenient paper trail in the case of auditing.

Choose Secure, Compliant Cloud-Based Faxing With Softlinx

Secure cloud fax services are the future for digitally transmitting protected information, no matter the industry. With ReplixFax, you can easily send a fax via the cloud in a few simple steps.

Our cloud-based faxing solutions are convenient and reliable — and they boast all the features your organization needs to send private, secure and compliant faxes. We offer standard support services and 24/7 live recovery support from a dedicated engineer for critical events.

Contact us today to learn more about migrating your faxing to the cloud!

Implementing safeguards for medical privacy laws per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is crucial for all healthcare organizations, whether protected information is communicated over the phone or via email. As long as the patient provides their consent, healthcare providers can safely send and receive protected health information (PHI) via encrypted emails or cloud faxes. However, obtaining the patient’s consent is not enough — the fax must be HIPAA compliant per the federal law restricting the release of medical information.

Learn more about the importance of medical HIPAA compliant fax cover sheets and other technical safeguarding measures healthcare organizations can use to protect ePHI.

What Are PHI and ePHI? 

Protected health information is any health information with a patient’s personal identifiers, such as a name, date of birth or social security number. Any PHI that is electronically transmitted, whether by email or fax, is known as ePHI.

Why Do Faxes Need a Cover Sheet?

Because a cover sheet is the first thing the recipient will see when they open the fax, it is a physical barrier of protection. A medical HIPAA compliant fax cover sheet is a technical safeguard to deter accidental viewing and disclosure of protected information.

What Should a HIPAA Fax Cover Sheet Contain?

There are a few fields all HIPAA compliant fax cover sheets should include to keep the sender and the unauthorized recipient safe from an unintentional data breach. If you opt to download a free cover sheet template online, be sure to check for the following fields:

Patient/HIPAA Information

• The patient’s name and reference number
• The date and time you sent the fax
• A HIPAA cover sheet disclaimer

Sender Information

• Name of the individual sender
• Name of the covered entity or organization
• The sender’s fax number and phone number

Recipient Information

• Name of the individual recipient
• Name of the recipient’s organization
• The recipient’s fax number and phone number

What Is an Example of a HIPAA Fax Disclaimer?

Your fax cover sheet will also require a HIPAA disclaimer. A HIPAA disclaimer serves to:

• Notify the recipient the fax contains classified patient health information.
• Safeguard against unauthorized viewing if the recipient is unfamiliar with HIPAA regulations.
• Protect the covered entity from liability should the information be viewed, copied or distributed.

A HIPAA disclaimer is reasonably straightforward by nature. First, it should state that HIPAA protects the fax’s enclosed information. Second, it should specify that if the recipient is not the intended individual or entity, they must contact and inform the sender of receipt and arrange the fax’s return or destruction.

Like cover sheet templates, you can find HIPAA fax disclaimer examples online. Here’s ours:

IMPORTANT: This fax contains confidential information, some or all of which is protected health information defined by the federal Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. This fax is exclusively intended for the entity or individual to whom it is addressed because it contains proprietary, privileged, protected and/or exempt information that is exempt from disclosure by federal law.

If you are not the addressed recipient (or an employee or agent responsible for delivery of this fax transmission to the intended individual or entity), you are hereby notified that disclosure, dissemination, copying, or distribution of the information enclosed is prohibited and you may be subject to legal restriction or sanction. Please notify the sender via telephone to arrange the return or destruction of the information enclosed and all copies.

Why Should Organizations Use a HIPAA Fax Cover Sheet?

It may surprise healthcare providers to learn HIPAA regulations don’t definitively state you need to include a cover sheet when you send protected information via fax. However, a HIPAA fax cover sheet is the simplest way to deter unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information if the fax arrives in the wrong hands. A fax cover sheet’s overall purpose is threefold:

• It provides the sender’s contact information so the unintended recipient can inform the sender.
• It tells the recipient to whom the fax was sent to encourage them not to look at the contents if not permitted to do so.
• It protects the covered entity from liability should the fax be illegally viewed, copied or distributed.

What Other Measures Can You Take to Ensure Privacy?

Outside of using a HIPAA fax cover sheet and disclaimer, there are other practices you can carry out to ensure the safe delivery of protected information.

• Verify the fax number: Occasionally, fax numbers change or are entered incorrectly during sending. Before you send a fax, call the intended organization to verbally confirm with a representative that the fax number you have on file is up to date.
• Notify your recipients: Call the organization to notify them when you send protected information. You can do this when you call to confirm the fax number, but even if you’re confident the fax number is correct, it is best to inform the intended recipient the information is coming their way — in case the fax fails or delivers to the wrong number.
• Print a delivery confirmation: Once the fax is successfully delivered, print the delivery confirmation for physical documentation. You can also review the printed delivery confirmation to confirm the fax number one last time. Occasionally, you may not notice an error — especially if it is a single digit — until you see the number in print.

Send Secure, HIPAA Compliant Faxes With ReplixFax 

Many healthcare organizations opt for cloud-based faxing with a HIPAA fax service as a convenient method for creating HIPAA-compliant faxes. ReplixFax streamlines HIPAA compliance for healthcare providers and administrators with secured storage networks, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption and other built-in safeguards. Our solutions are audit-friendly, enhance communication between EHRs and facilitate multidevice access for combined convenience and compliance.

In short, we ensure your ePHI healthcare faxes deliver seamlessly and compliantly. We’ve designed our cloud-based fax services with busy, patient-centered healthcare organizations in mind. Our ReplixFax cloud fax service is easy to use on the go thanks to its intuitive interface, saving healthcare providers and administrators valuable time and energy. Using our email-to-fax interface, sending a fax is as simple as attaching a file to an email, addressing it to the recipient’s fax number and hitting send.

Contact us today to migrate your faxing to the cloud with our HIPAA-compliant cloud fax service for healthcare organizations.

Though many may believe that faxes are dying out, the truth is that they are evolving. Cloud faxing falls under many different names, including virtual faxing, online faxing and web faxing. More and more businesses are turning to cloud solutions for storage and communication, and faxing is no exception. According to a 2017 survey from the International Data Corporation (IDC), 90 percent of fax users have integrated or are evaluating the integration of fax with other technologies, like cloud usage. It’s become the new norm for faxing, which is still used by many businesses as a means of secure communication.

Cloud faxing is incredibly easy to use and often is no more complicated than sending an email. Due to its simplicity, reliability and cost-effectiveness, sending a fax over the internet is becoming more and more popular as a safe and efficient solution for a variety of business needs.

But what exactly does cloud faxing entail? What kinds of materials do you need, and how do you send an online fax in the first place? We’ll go over all of this and more so that you know how to send a fax over the web and what it’s all about.

What Is the Cloud?

The cloud means various things to different companies, and it is the foundation for many of them. Traditionally, when you need to access or store a file, you store it on a local server. This storage could be the hard drive in your computer or a network that business computers are linked up to. In either case, the connection is often hard-wired.

In the cloud, this is all stored elsewhere. Someone else manages and maintains the servers, which could be halfway across the world. Many businesses opt to outsource their storage solutions, and others, mainly large enterprises, will keep a data center for many locations. Then, when you need to access something, you start up a series of protocols over your internet connection to call up the files you need. Usually, on the user’s end, those protocols are as simple as clicking on a preview picture of the document you want. Think about using Google Docs and selecting an image to open it. Clicking on it pulls the file from storage in a server far, far away and displays it through your Internet connection.

Google Docs, Amazon Photos, Apple’s iCloud, e-mail and even Netflix are all examples of cloud-based services. They are typically straightforward to use, and the experience is almost no different for the user than if the data was on a local server. Not only does cloud computing free up space on local servers, but it also makes your information more accessible. Documents and photos are available from any device that has an Internet connection. This flexibility is part of the appeal of a cloud-based fax system — you can send or receive a fax over the cloud from nearly any device at any time.

Why Fax Over the Cloud?

So what does the cloud mean for faxing? One of the primary reasons that businesses use fax is because faxing is a secure, legal method of communication perfect for sending and receiving sensitive documents. Cloud-based faxing is also cost-effective, as you don’t need to overburden IT personnel to take care of a server or worry about the up-front expense of the necessary hardware.

Cisco found that cloud data centers will process 94 percent of workloads and compute instances by 2021. The cloud’s compatibility and simplicity make it an excellent solution for many businesses. Some of the draws for enterprises include the fact that the system is easy to archive and scalable. Since faxes deliver as an image, documents are archivable, and you can access your history of deliveries through any internet connection. Cloud systems are also scalable, so if a company is growing, the cloud can quickly adopt new members. Adding new users is simple.

On a user level, faxing over the cloud is often preferable for several reasons. It is:

• Simple: An email-integrated fax system that is more accessible and easier to use was the most-cited reason for growth in fax usage, according to the IDC. The ease of use helps reduce the need for extensive training.
• Accessible: Not only does a cloud-based system streamline the process in an office, but it also allows for more accessibility. People working remotely often don’t have access to separate fax networks, so faxing over email makes it a viable option.
• Reliable: With cloud faxing, you can still get secure, reliable faxing without a cumbersome process or extensive costs. If you have the internet, you have faxes. This availability also allows you to get away from busy signals and connection issues. Softlinx, for example, has nearly 100 percent uptime, making faxing much less frustrating.
• Secure: There are different levels of security with cloud faxing, and sensitive documents need a dedicated method of secure transfer. Secure faxes are sent more safely, through encryption and a protected server that keeps your information safe, whether it is incoming or outgoing. This security means that you can send confidential records, test results, purchase orders and other sensitive documents with confidence. Your file itself is also protected from prying eyes. In a crowded office, it is easy for faxes to get lost or for passersby to see them accidentally. With cloud faxing, your document goes straight to its recipient, who sometimes needs to log in with a dedicated username and password.
• Trackable: Each fax gets tracking data that you can follow up on, and you can receive notifications when your documents are opened and delivered. This information makes it easy to keep an eye on important details.
• Archivable: Another bonus is that faxed documents are simple to archive since they typically save as an image file. When received, the fax server decodes these signals into something that you can read, usually an image file. What this means is that you can save the documents easily to your local network or in the cloud if you need to. All of your data is logged, and you can view your transmission history as well.

What Do You Need to Fax Over the Cloud?

Sending a fax over the cloud requires three things: a device with an internet connection, an email address and a cloud-based fax service.

Softlinx offers several access options. Email is the simplest one. When you register your email with our service, you can then send faxes from any mail client. From a web browser like Chrome or Firefox, you can access our ReplixFax application, where you can send and receive secure faxes. You can also download a desktop program or integrate our code into existing business applications. By integrating ReplixFax, you can streamline the process further, making it fast and straightforward to fax off a document securely.

If you need to send a printed document, you can use a multifunction printer that has fax over internet protocol (FoIP) capabilities to digitally fax it. Sending faxes between two FoIP machines is comparable to sending an email.

How to Send a Fax Online

Sending a fax online is a simple process and is often as easy as sending an email, but there are several different ways you can do it. Your data can range from scanned papers to Excel documents, and you can open them via a wide range of access options.

1. Email

Before trying to send a fax via email, it’s important to remember that the link must be supporting TLS/SSL encryption to ensure the security of email-based fax job submission. Otherwise, the fax job transmission may not be secure or suitable for sensitive documents, such as patient records, payment information and other confidential data. With that said, email-to-fax is one of the fastest, easiest methods for faxing a document, and you can even send them from a mobile device.

If you’re sending a fax using an email-to-fax interface, you can attach native files such as the ones listed below if the cloud fax server is capable of converting attachment documents in native file formats:

• Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)
• Microsoft Office Word (DOC, DOCX), PowerPoint (PPT, PPTX) and Excel (XLS, XLSX)
• Plain text (TXT)
• Tagged Image Format (TIF)
• Hypertext Markup Langauge (HTML)
• Rich Text Format (RTF)
• Postscript (PS)
• JPEG (JPG)
• Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)
• Bitmap (BMP)

The next step is to enter in the information of your recipient. The formatting may differ from service to service, but most are similar. With ReplixFax, you address a new email to (fax_number)@(org_id).rpxfax.com. (Fax number) is the fax number of the person you wish to send your fax to, and the (org_id) is your organization’s name. Then, attach the document you want to fax and hit send. The fax request is submitted to the cloud fax service, where it is translated into a format that the recipient’s system can read. Regardless of the method that your recipient uses to receive faxes, you can be sure that your document will reach them with this process.

You’ll typically receive an email notification when your fax is successfully delivered. If you want to check up on your fax, you may also search and view it using your web fax client application.

2. Print to Fax

Another way to fax is to install a Print2Fax driver. These drivers make the faxing process similar to printing a document. On a Windows PC, Print2Fax installs as an application and appears in the list of printers. When you’re ready to fax something, hit print and select the ReplixFax Print2Fax printer. This selection converts the document to a fax file and opens the application. From here, you can enter your recipient’s fax number, along with any cover pages, additional documents or scheduled delivery times.

In the Print2Fax application, you can check in on the fax status and review your delivery history as well.

3. Web Fax

From a web browser, you can securely log in to your ReplixFax web portal through www.rpxfax.com and navigate the interface. You’ll be prompted to upload your document, enter the recipient’s number and select your cover page. The web client also allows you to view your sent faxes and their statuses, along with a personal phonebook.

4. Broadcast/Mail-Merge Fax

If you need to send a fax to multiple recipients, a broadcast fax is the way to go. This feature is available through the ReplixFax web portal and can send a document to thousands of people at once. Under the “Broadcast” tab, upload your fax recipient file and the file you need to send. Once sent, you can view the statuses of the faxes and download an Excel file with the job details. ReplixFax Mail-Merge feature is also available for you to fax a customized document for each recipient to thousands of people at once.

5. Folder Fax for Outbound Faxing

A feature like folder faxing allows you to automate the process of faxing documents using a Fax Loader utility program. This program polls designated network folders and looks for fax parameters like a recipient number and fax documents to submit to the cloud service. You can configure this tool to work with a variety of options to automate outbound faxing with no manual intervention.

6. Delivering Inbound Faxes to Network Folders

ReplixFax enables you to get your inbound faxes delivered to network folders with the ReplixFax Delivery Manager utility. This program allows you to establish fax document delivery rules in a flexible way to create network folders and file names based on selected fax metadata.

7. Secure Faxing

Part of the reason faxing became so popular is because of its security, and online faxing doesn’t skimp on this feature. It’s also crucial for operations in industries like healthcare and finance, where you need to stay compliant. Softlinx offers a cloud fax service that is compliant with HIPAA and PCI DSS, uses encryption to protect your data and hosts your information in the cloud at a secure data center that are annually audited and publishes SOC 2 reports for security, reliability and compliance.

Secure faxing is simple and can be done through email, business applications via fax APIs, a web portal, a multi-function printer or a Windows desktop application. The submission to Softlinx is encrypted to keep your information safe. Both outgoing and inbound faxes are secure and encrypted. They can be delivered via the web portal, Windows applications, business applications through fax APIs and your email inbox. You can also receive secure faxes directly to your shared network folders, safely behind firewalls.

Partner with Softlinx for Reliable Online Faxing

Online faxing has grown in recent years — and for good reason. It is fast, efficient and simple, making it easy for any employee, whether they grew up in the digital age or have just purchased their first smartphone, to jump in right away. Users can send files from any internet-connected device and send a variety of data types with fewer reliability problems. Online faxing is also secure. Softlinx is entirely HIPAA compliant and boasts robust security protocols for all secure documents.

Moving faxes to the cloud has a wide variety of benefits for both businesses and their employees. We’ve worked with some of the biggest names in technology, like Dialogic, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco and IBM, to bring state-of-the-art secure fax solutions to businesses of all sizes. For more information on how to fax over the cloud or assistance with Softlinx programs, please reach out today.