A person or patient’s information related to:
- Past, Present, Future
- Mental or Physical Health (or related billing information)
- Which can be connected to the individual by an "identifier" (18 listed below)
- And which can come in all forms – including oral, written, electronic, etc.
Excludes employment records and education records (think HR/FERPA)
PHI can be shared without a patient’s authorization for purposes of:
T-reatment
P-ayment
Healthcare O-perations
18 Identifiers: which can connect an individual to their PHI, making it identifiable.
Remember, per the definition above, PHI is not limited to these 18 identifiers
- Names;
- All geographical subdivisions smaller than a State, including street address, city, county, precinct, zip code, and their equivalent geocodes, except for the initial three digits of a zip code, if according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of the Census: (1) The geographic unit formed by combining all zip codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people; and (2) The initial three digits of a zip code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people is changed to 000;
- All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to an individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death; and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older;
- Telephone numbers;
- Fax numbers;
- E-mail addresses;
- Social Security numbers;
- Medical records numbers;
- Health plan beneficiary numbers;
- Account numbers;
- Certificate/license numbers;
- Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plates;
- Device identifiers and serial numbers;
- Web Universal Resource Locators (URLs);
- Internet Protocol (IP) address numbers;
- Biometric identifiers (including finger and voice prints);
- Full face photographic images and any comparable images; and,
- Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code (with some exceptions and requirements).