A health information notice is a message to the wrong person. It assumes the pages have already landed somewhere they shouldn't have. It tells whoever is holding them to stop reading. Call the sender. Destroy the copies. That's the whole job.
Putting the words on the page doesn't make a transmission HIPAA compliant. Compliance is about who you send to. Whether the number was confirmed before dialing. Who can see the machine at the other end. What happens to the record afterward. A cover sheet is one small part of that. None of this is legal advice. A rule may apply to what you're sending. Have someone who knows it check the wording you use.
The notice included here is the general form of the wording used across medical offices. Copy it into a template you keep if that's easier than coming back to this page.
| Field | What to put |
|---|---|
| To | A person. Or the desk that handles records. A fax addressed to a whole hospital gets read by whoever is standing there. |
| Subject | Enough to route the fax. No more. "Records request" is right. A patient name is not. Neither is a diagnosis. |
| Callback | A number someone can reach. If a page comes through unreadable this is the only way anyone can tell you. |
| Pages | The total including the cover. The receiving desk can check nothing went missing. |
| Message | What the pages don't already say. Not a summary of the record. |
The cover sheet is the page most likely to be read by someone other than the recipient. It's the one that sits face up in the tray. Keep the identifying detail on the pages behind it.
Send a fax from an iPhone at 50¢ per page. Fill in the same fields. Pick a layout. The cover sheet goes out in front of the document. No subscription. US & Canada.
