What Are HIPAA-Compliant Online Fax Services?

With the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ever-sharpening the ways healthcare and medical practitioners document, communicate and store their patients’ information, something as simple as sending a fax can quickly manifest into a detailed, cumbersome and complicated procedure.

More information about HIPAA is available from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

HIPAA first and foremost safeguards consumer health information and data privacy. It places rules and guidelines around the security of medical records, as well as any other personal health information (PHI) that could be used to trace back to an individual. Also known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA is a set of federal protections intended to maintain the confidentiality of patient health data, specifying the basic security measures required to keep ePHI data secured. Often, both faxing and online faxing methods fall on the wrong side of HIPAA compliance, either due to unsecured machines or a lack of encryption. Replix®, on the other hand, meets all HIPAA compliance standards, providing a secure internet fax solution.

The most common HIPAA violations today concern Title II violations, meaning the secure electronic storage, access controls and transmission of PHI. In addition to unsecurely or careless transmitting patient data, many health organizations and their vendor partners fail to outline comprehensive data-risk analyses for the entirety of their organizations, leading to severe fines.

A HIPAA-compliant internet fax service mitigates these electronic risks. It is a solution that aims to make faxing medical information between healthcare operations simple and streamlined yet still HIPAA-compliant, with safeguards in place to ensure every aspect of Title II’s electronic information transfers are being followed. Softlinx’s Replix® is a HIPAA-compliant fax service geared toward the health care industry. The system ensures the security of confidential patient information every time by implementing appropriate safeguards. These safeguards include secured networks, authentication procedures, AES 256-bit encryption protocols and centralized secure storage, among other features. The system even maintains logs of all faxes, inquiries, retrievals and deletions for auditing purposes.

What Are HIPAA Compliant Cloud-Based Fax Services for Healthcare?

For healthcare organizations, in particular, integrating safe, secure and efficient new software into their business processes can seem laborious and expensive. You not only have to train all personnel in the latest technology, but you must also ensure every process and procedure in that new system works under HIPAA laws without disrupting the fundamental uptime workings of the office. The nature of the industry doesn’t leave room for procedural carelessness.

Cloud-based fax services for healthcare organizations helps ease the strain between safely storing and sending PHI via fax. They are computer applications that integrate with most current electronic health record (EHR) systems and help you correctly send and receive faxes, as well as save fax history in a comprehensive and audit-friendly log. Also, all electronic communications are safely encrypted, offering password-protected user controls and other security measures that adhere to HIPAA’s Title II regulations.

Internet-based fax services accomplish much of this by utilizing cloud technology. This means that rather than storing all fax data on-site, fax history and information is stored in an off-site, partnered data center — one that’s highly monitored, frequently tested and up to date in the latest network cyber-security strategies. Your organization can access its PHI, medical data and fax functions through a secure application portal, over email or online. In total, these systems make all fax-related work simpler yet more HIPAA-compliant — the dream combination for many healthcare administrators.

What Can Your Healthcare Organization Accomplish With HIPAA-Compliant Fax Services and Support?

It’s not just about saving time and money. A complete, HIPAA-compliant fax solution for your medical or healthcare organization alleviates the oversight and energy it takes to remain in compliance, which is square one for those in the industry.

These cloud-based faxing programs also put people first — from your office administrators to your patients themselves. As concerns over data privacy and usage only grow more pressing, you can rest assured your organization is taking every possible measure to secure medical information and meet the public’s heightened demands.

A Replix® HIPAA-compliant fax solution from Softlinx is your partner in doing so. Schedule a free live software demo today at 1-800-899-7724, email our support specialists, request a quote online or fill out our contact form.

Why Choose Softlinx HIPAA Compliant Cloud Fax Services?

The Replix® health care fax service from Softlinx offers a reliable online document delivery and faxing solution for businesses of all types, especially those in the health care industry. By allowing your business to submit and accept faxes directly to and from your existing applications with an HIPAA-secure method, Replix® cuts costs to your business while streamlining your workflows. With the Replix® HIPAA -compliant fax service, your health care business can benefit from:

• Application Faxing for Business: Softlinx’s service features are specifically designed for business users, focusing on reliability and flexibility. For this purpose, our secure e-fax solution offers a full API toolkit to support organizations as they integrate the Replix® system into their existing workflows and applications. The APIs and sample codes are available, so your IT staff and developers can gain the information they need to integrate your system and automate essential processes so you can start sending secure fax files and documents directly from your established applications.

• Easy End-User Fax Tools: On top of the integration tools designed to ease the transition, the Softlinx system features numerous user-friendly faxing tools to support your business’s online faxing needs. These include a variety of fax processing tools, including email to fax, print to fax, web fax and MFP support. The result is an easy-to-use system that allows your users to send documents directly from business applications using a recipient email address.

• Fax Document Workflow: The Softlinx system has its own systems in place so your secure faxing solutions integrate seamlessly with your workflows. These include electronic filing, printing, metadata passing and barcode fax workflows, as well as integrated tracking and notification systems help to streamline your secure network fax processes.

• Cost-Saving Efficiency: Between reducing your hardware investments and minimizing involved labor, Softlinx can save your business money. By automating delivery, tracking and notification systems, and converting your fax system to a digital format, your business cuts costs while speeding up processes, all while maintaining security.

• Security and Compliance: Healthcare companies are required to maintain patient confidentiality by HIPAA and other regulations. To this end, Softlinx can help by providing a fax solution that is both HIPAA- and PCI-DSS compliant, using extensive data encryption to ensure your fax communication. The Replix® document and fax delivery service is hosted at an SSAE 16 audited data center with AES 256-bit encryption applied to all documents at rest. The system even uses SSL/TLS protocols over a secure communication link. Your health care business can rest easy knowing your data is handled with the utmost care.

• Constant Service and Support: We provide first-class support from a professional customer support team based out of the United States. With 24/7 service, we always stand ready to help you with your faxing and document delivery needs, from initial setup concerns to employee training. We guarantee only the best, with a service level agreement (SLA) for prompt problem resolution and a 99.9 percent up time.
  

How Does Softlinx Support HIPAA Compliance?

Softlinx Cloud Fax Service through ReplixFax offers HIPAA-compliant fax solutions, safeguarding electronic protected health information for healthcare service providers through multiple measures.

Softlinx ensures a HIPAA-compliant e-fax every time, mostly because it provides appropriate safeguards for electronic protected health information. These guarantees are various safety and security measures that include secure network connections, password security measures and AES 256-bit encryption of fax information.

All electronic fax sessions via Web Service API directly from an Electronic Health Record (EHR) application are secure and protected.  The system also maintains detailed system logs for all inquiries, fax requests, retrievals and deletions of all faxes for an audit trail.

This HIPAA-compliant internet fax service logs all user activities, along with detailed information for each sent or received fax and can be retrieved via Web Services API or through administrative tools. Upon successful delivery of a fax document, the system can also remove the fax document completely from the system for further security.

PCI Compiance

Softlinx’ ReplixFax Cloud Services are conducted over secure network protocols with data encryption, protecting information far beyond your health information. The encryption also protects your confidential financial information such as faxing your credit card information or financial statements. As a HIPAA-compliant online fax service provider we meet all PCI compliance requirements.

 

Softlinx Data Center

Softlinx’ data center, where we host our ReplixFax Cloud Service, is an SSAE-16 audited hosting facility that meets the standards set forth by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) for security and reliability. Our data center is fully compliant with HIPAA and PCI DSS requirements by maintaining a secure network to protect electronic protected health information (e-PHI) and cardholder data, policies on the maintenance of Access Control Measures and a Vulnerability Management Program.

Learn more about how the Softlinx HIPPA-compliant fax solution from Softlinx can help your health care organization reach new levels of productivity. Contact us today to schedule a live demo by calling at 1-800-899-7724 or by filling out our form.

HIPAA Compliance Support for Replix Healthcare Fax

We have one of the best fax APIs with dedicated support team, allowing your product management and development teams to embed secure fax capabilities into your healthcare applications with minimal efforts to meet your deadlines.