Frequently Asked Questions

What is PHI?

Protected Health Information is health information about a patient held by health care providers and health plans. This includes things like:

• Patient’s medical record number
• Patient’s demographic information (e.g. address, telephone number)
• Information doctors, nurses and other health care providers put in a patient’s medical record
• Images of the patient
• Conversations a doctor has about a patient’s care or treatment with nurses and others
• Information about a patient in a doctor’s computer system or a health insurer’s computer system
• Billing information about a patient at a clinic