Peoples Health requires access to the medical records of its plan members to carry out various health care operations and payment activities. Those activities include, without limitation, conducting quality assessment and improvement activities, including outcomes evaluation and development of clinical guidelines, case management and care coordination, and medical necessity and utilization review. HIPAA allows covered entities—such as Peoples Health and health care providers—to use and disclose protected health information for treatment, payment and health care operations purposes.
Peoples Health employees are trained to only access the files and records of Peoples Health plan members and are instructed to access and use only the minimum necessary protected health information of a member to accomplish the intended purpose of the use. A patient’s authorization is not required for Peoples Health to access and use the patient’s protected health information for payment and health care operations purposes. Find answers to frequently asked questions about remote access to medical records in Provider Portal, under the Resources tab.