How to enhance privacy when faxing through Interfax (for HIPAA and other purposes)

Some users - such as US healthcare entities who are required to abide by HIPAA guidelines, and financial institutions worldwide - have enhanced privacy requirements from messaging providers, such as InterFAX.

While Interfax does not fall into any of the HIPAA "covered entity" categories, as potential Business Associate we have implemented several privacy-enhancing features and procedures, and suggest that you apply the following measures:

1. Use SSL or PKI to send your message - We enable SSL-secured communication to our Web Service servers via https://ws.interfax.net, and public-key encryption of email messages, so that potentially patient-identifying information can be submitted securely for faxing.

2. Use the 'delete fax after completion' feature - This setting may be selected through your account sending preferences.  It is intended to keep patient-identifying information on our servers no longer than is necessary to send a fax or to announce its failure (several minutes).  When set, images of faxes sent through the service, as well as temporary files,  will immediately be deleted from our servers upon completion.

3. Don't place patient-identifying, or otherwise confidential,  information into any data fields - Make sure that confidential information is only present in the body of your outgoing fax.  All other parts of a transaction are retained indefinitely for billing purposes, so don't insert confidential information anywhere except in the fax itself.

Keywords: HIPAA-compliant faxing, HIPAA-compliant fax