HIPAA-Compliant Fax for Pennsylvania Healthcare Providers
Pennsylvania health systems such as UPMC in Pittsburgh and Penn Medicine in Philadelphia move enormous volumes of clinical paper between hospitals, specialists, and payers every day, and most of that exchange still travels by fax. Referrals, lab orders, and prior authorization requests need to land with a record that they arrived, which is why fax remains the default for protected health information across the Commonwealth.
Regulations & Compliance
Pennsylvania providers answer to federal HIPAA and to the Pennsylvania Health Care Facilities Act, which sets recordkeeping rules for licensed facilities under the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The State Medical Board governs physician conduct, and the Mental Health Procedures Act adds tighter confidentiality requirements for behavioral health records. Send FAX Mail encrypts faxes in transit with TLS and at rest with AES-256, and signs a Business Associate Agreement with covered entities, which supports compliance on the Business plan at $79.99/mo with HIPAA coverage.
Key Institutions
- • Pennsylvania Department of Health
- • Pennsylvania Medical Society
- • UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center)
- • Penn Medicine (University of Pennsylvania Health System)
Healthcare Fax in Pennsylvania — FAQ
It does. Faxes are encrypted with TLS while moving and AES-256 while stored, and we sign a Business Associate Agreement with covered entities. The Business plan at $79.99/mo includes HIPAA coverage, which is what most Pennsylvania clinics and group practices choose for protected health information.
Specialist referrals, lab and imaging orders, prescription and prior authorization requests, and signed patient consent forms make up the bulk of it. Behavioral health practices subject to the Mental Health Procedures Act also lean on fax because it produces a documented delivery record.
Yes. Incoming faxes arrive as PDFs in your inbox, and you can reply or send new faxes the same way. There is no hardware to maintain at the practice, which suits offices spread across Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and smaller Pennsylvania towns.
Plans begin at $12.99/mo, and the HIPAA-covered Business plan runs $79.99/mo. Each tier comes with a set monthly page allowance, so a high-volume Pittsburgh or Philadelphia practice moves up to a larger plan rather than paying per page, and picking your fax number costs nothing extra.
Why this matters
The HIPAA Security Rule requires technical safeguards to protect electronic protected health information when it is transmitted over a network.
Source: U.S. HHS — 45 CFR § 164.312(e)(1)HIPAA requires covered entities to obtain satisfactory assurances — typically a Business Associate Agreement — from vendors that handle protected health information on their behalf.
Source: U.S. HHS — 45 CFR § 164.308(b)As of 2021, most U.S. non-federal acute care hospitals still used mail or fax to exchange summary-of-care records with outside organizations — 69% to send and 78% to receive.
Source: ONC Data Brief No. 64 (Jan 2023), AHA Annual Survey IT SupplementStart faxing for healthcare in Pennsylvania
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