HIPAA: Caller ID and Facility Phone Number

From HcPro’s newsletter Briefings on HIPAA:

Q: Does HIPAA require that we block our facility’s telephone numbers from appearing on Caller ID when calling patients, their families, or their homes? Our facility treats behavioral health and chemical dependency patients.

A: The privacy rule doesn’t specifically require you to do so, but HIPAA does require covered entities to take reasonable steps to protect their patients’ privacy.

You may not want to block your facility’s number, because many individuals don’t answer calls when numbers don’t appear on their caller ID. Instead, consider having just the telephone number appear without your facility’s name attached. Alternatively, you could have a generic term or name, such as clinic or healthcare facility, appear with the telephone number instead of your treatment facility’s actual name.