Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), required by law, has provided AmeriHealth with the opportunity to take additional steps to increase the security of out-bound electronic communications.
To meet the requirements of HIPAA, AmeriHealth has installed new software that secures outbound e-mail containing protected health information (PHI) and has adopted new procedures to be followed internally and by external members, group customers and business partners when sending/receiving a secure e-mail. A secure e-mail is altered (or "encrypted") so that it is unintelligible to unauthorized parties. PHI is individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by a covered entity such as AmeriHealth.
AmeriHealth is now securing all outbound e-mail containing PHI. Instead of receiving e-mail directly to your inbox, you will receive a notification message that AmeriHealth has an e-mail waiting for you on a secure server. A link will take you, via a secure browser, to that server, where you will receive instructions for opening the e-mail.
Process for Retrieving Secure E-mails
- Member of the AmeriHealth workforce sends an e-mail containing protected health information.
- The e-mail is saved on a secure server.
- The addressee (member, broker, group administrator, or provider) receives the message saying the e-mail is waiting for them. Then, the addressee retrieves the message from a secure server with instructions for opening the e-mail.
While this process requires some extra steps, we are making every effort to ensure that there is no significant disruption to your communications with us. We appreciate your cooperation in helping us safeguard PHI.
