HIPAA Guidelines

Per HIPAA guidelines, students cannot report this information in fieldwork assignments such as case studies presentations:

• Name
• Location - includes anything smaller than a state, such as street address
• Dates - all, including date of birth, admission and discharge dates
• Telephone numbers
• Fax numbers
• Electronic e-mail addresses
• Social security numbers
• Medical record numbers
• Health plan beneficiary numbers
• Account numbers
• Certificate and/or license numbers
• Vehicle identification numbers and license plate numbers
• Device identifiers and their 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
• Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code.

For written reports, the following information can be shared:

• Age (age 90 and over must be aggregated to prevent the identification of older individuals)
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Marital Status
• Codes (a random code may be used to link cases, as long as the code does not contain, or be a derivative of, the person's social security number, date of birth, phone/fax numbers, etc.)

Students, as well as therapists, often keep "working files" in their desk. This is still allowed under HIPAA guidelines, however this information must be locked in a file cabinet when not in use, and must be shredded when no longer needed.

Last Update: 04/07/04
From http://www.aota.org/nonmembers/area13/links/LINK37.asp on 6-20-06