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Is Fax HIPAA Compliant? Some fax services are HIPAA compliant, while others are not. Even those that claim to be HIPAA compliant vary considerably in the degree to which they safeguard protected health information (PHI). Health care providers and other organizations should look for fax services that use industry-standard security and encryption, security-certified data centers, and who work with HIPAA covered organizations on a regular basis. Fax providers must also be willing to sign a "business associate agreement” that meets your organization’s specific needs.
How do I send with the Print Driver? WestFax provides multiple ways of sending a fax, making the process simple and painless. Most don’t even require you to walk away from your computer. One popular method is to use the WestFax Print To Fax driver. It’s a small program that installs on your computer and emulates a Windows printer. Once you have installed it, sending a fax is as easy as printing a document. Check our guide here on sending a fax via the WestFax Print Driver.
Is WestFax HIPAA compliant? WestFax offers industry-leading HIPAA compliant fax service that meets the highest standards for security. With multiple options to integrate fax into your processes and applications, WestFax offers maximum interoperability for organizations that manage patient information on a day-to-day basis. As part of our HIPAA compliant Healthcare Fax, WestFax provides an industry standard Business Associate Agreement. Our BAA agreement satisfies the Health and Human Services (HSS) standards for Health Information Privacy (HIP).
How long does it take to send a fax? Unlike email, that is almost instant, a fax can take a bit longer. There are several factors to consider when you are trying to send a fax. 1) The size of the fax. 2) The receivers fax speed 3) Busy signals.
Let's say your fax is a mix of text and few graphics and is 10 pages long. The rule of thumb with fax is to give it one minute per page to send. So in this case 10 minutes. This leads to the next consideration which is the speed of the receiver. Fax speed is defined as a "Baud Rate". Most faxes operate between 9600 baud to 33,600 baud speeds. The latter being the fasted. Some organizations utilize low speed sip fax that is very slow and prone to errors, which cause the document to error correct and take even longer and finally we have to deal with busy signals. Some receivers have analog or hard fax machines with a limit on the number of connections. These older machines are being phased out but they still exist. A retry will take about 5 minutes on average as we give the reciever time to finish the other call and we'll try again. So you can see that it cane take quite a bit of time to send a fax. WestFax is known for the highest and most reliable speeds in the fax industry. We utilize high speed TDM fax networks that connect at 33.6k and never have busy signals.
Can I send a fax from my Gmail? It’s easy to send a fax using Gmail. Click on the “compose” button to start a new e-mail. In the “To” address field, enter the fax number, followed by “@westfax.com”. Simply attach a document or image file to the e-mail, and send it. WestFax will identify it as a fax from your account (based on the Gmail address that you are using to send it), and it will be sent as an outbound fax from your account.
Can I send a fax from Word? There are several different ways to send a fax from Microsoft Word. The simplest method is to use the WestFax print driver, which emulates a printer on your computer. By printing the Word file to the WestFax driver and adding your recipient’s fax number, WestFax will automatically route the printing of the Word document to your recipient’s fax machine. WestFax also makes it easy to send word documents as faxes, simply by attaching them to an e-mail or uploading them to the WestFax portal.
Can I send a fax from my Outlook email? To send a fax from your Outlook e-mail, simply attach a Word document, PDF, or image file to an e-mail, and address it to the destination phone number, adding “@westfax.com” to the end. WestFax will automatically associate the fax with your account, based on the e-mail address from which it is being sent.
What is always required when you are sending a fax? We recommend always including a cover page with your fax. In the case of HIPAA covered organizations, we strongly recommend using a HIPAA-specific cover page with a confidentiality statement. WestFax makes it easy to send a fax through our secure online portal, by sending the fax as an e-mail attachment (as a PDF, Word file, or image), or using the WestFax Print to Fax driver. Fax transmission capabilities can also be built into software using the WestFax API. Users can also send and receive faxes via our service using traditional fax machine..
What must you include as part of all faxes that contain protected health information? HIPAA compliant faxes containing protected health information should always include a cover sheet that includes a confidentiality statement, as well as the name of the recipient, their fax number, and the name, organization, and contact information of the sender.
What is a BAA? A “business associate” is a person or entity that performs certain functions or activities that involve the use or disclosure of protected health information on behalf of, or provides services to, a covered entity. A member of the covered entity’s workforce is not a business associate. A covered health care provider, health plan, or health care clearinghouse can be a business associate of another covered entity. ( learn more about BAA on the HHS site)
Many digital fax platforms won’t sign a BAA. Will WestFax sign a BAA? Yes. WestFax will sign a Business Associate Agreement. Contact us to discuss your requirements. Our BAA agreement satisfies the Health and Human Services (HSS) standards for Health Information Privacy (HIP). (https://www.hhs.gov/)
We use an ERM, Can you integrate Fax into our workflow? Yes, We can integrate into any ERM. It starts with something as simple as Print to Fax driver and we can also perform custom integration into your ERM using our HIPAA Compliant Secure Fax API. Please contact us for more information.
Do you have an API we can integrate with? Yes, We offer a robust HIPAA Compliant Secure Fax API. Go here to learn more about our API and sign up here.
Can I get Customer Service help if I need it? Yes. Our in-house account managers are experienced professionals with years of service to the company. There is virtually no request they can’t handle. Our turnaround time for large custom merge orders is unmatched in the industry.
Do I need to buy any software or hardware? No. You only need Internet access or email capability.
What kind of security do you have at your Datacenter? Our highly secure Tier III data centers maintain SSAE16 SOC 2 Certifications to provide physical control of your ePHI data. The facility utilizes fingerprint scanning and video surveillance. Redundant and fault-tolerant power and HVAC systems ensuring system performance and availability. Redundant internet connections and carrier-class firewalling and security. Comprehensive compliance support that includes FISMA High / NIST 800-53, HIPAA, PCI-DSS Level 1, SOC 2 Type II, and SOC 3.
How secure is your HIPAA Compliant Fax Service? We utilize the highest level of TLS encryption available for data in transit either through our secure website or secure API interfaces. We also use AES 256 bit encryption of ePHI data to guarantee privacy and prevent disclosure from intrusion. We support TLS protected SMTP email with optional REQUIRE TLS extension in accordance with the IETF RFC 3207. FTPS and SFTP with TLS for safe and secure transport of documents to and from your existing servers. Comprehensive HTTPS API allows for easy and flexible integration of systems.
What are your acceptable document formats? MS Word, PDF, Tiff, RTF, Excel, Publisher, png, jpg, gif and Powerpoint.
How do I sign up? Contact a WestFax Sales Representative at 1-800-473-6208 or use our Getting Started form.