HIPAA Compliance and AI: What Healthcare Practices Need to Know

Healthcare practices want the efficiency of AI but worry about HIPAA compliance. Good news: with the right safeguards, AI voice agents can be fully compliant while dramatically improving your patient communications.

Understanding HIPAA Requirements

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protects:

• PHI (Protected Health Information): Any health information that can identify a patient
• ePHI (Electronic PHI): PHI stored or transmitted electronically

Any technology handling patient information must comply with HIPAA's Privacy Rule, Security Rule, and Breach Notification Rule.

What Makes an AI System HIPAA-Compliant?

• Business Associate Agreement (BAA): The AI vendor must sign a BAA with your practice
• Data encryption: All data must be encrypted in transit and at rest
• Access controls: Only authorized personnel can access recordings and transcripts
• Audit logs: All access to PHI must be logged and auditable
• Data retention policies: Clear policies on how long data is stored
• Breach notification: Procedures for notifying in case of data breach

What AI Can Handle in Healthcare

HIPAA-compliant AI can safely manage:

• Appointment scheduling and reminders
• General office information (hours, location, parking)
• Insurance verification questions
• Prescription refill requests (routing to staff, not processing)
• Post-appointment satisfaction surveys
• Referral calls to other providers

Setting Up Safe Workflows

Best practices for healthcare AI implementation:

1. Avoid PHI in greetings: Don't have the AI say "Hi John, calling about your diabetes medication?"
2. Use secure verification: Verify identity before discussing any health information
3. Route clinical questions: Transfer medical questions to clinical staff
4. Limit data collection: Only collect what's necessary for the task
5. Regular training: Train staff on proper AI use and HIPAA protocols

Ask Averie's HIPAA Approach

Ask Averie takes healthcare compliance seriously:

• BAA available for all healthcare customers
• 256-bit AES encryption for all data
• SOC 2 Type II certified infrastructure
• Automatic PHI detection and protection
• Configurable data retention policies
• Detailed audit logs for all interactions