HIPAA and De-Identifying Clients

It is important to de-identify all clients in clinical experience forms that you submit to NMI. Doing so helps to ensure that you and the practice where you are apprenticing are in compliance with HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). This means that when submitting forms, please make sure you are not submitting client names alongside the documentation that you submit. If you choose to use a “form alias,” make sure the alias that you use does not include the client’s name. Experience forms with client names will be returned to you so that you can resubmit a de-identified version. 

While much of HIPAA can be challenging to decipher, especially as it applies to out-of-hospital midwifery, Person Centered Tech’s Blog article provides an overview of best practices for de-identifying client info. Both NMI and NARM require use of unique Client #s, IDs or Codes for all clinical documentation (see NARM CIB definition, p. 69 and NMI Student Handbook, p. 30). The above Blog article can be used for reference as you create Client IDs to track and submit your experience.  

For more on HIPAA: the US Department of Health & Human Services provides extensive info, whereas Maternity Neighborhood provides more basic info as relevant to community based midwifery practice (part one, two and three) by focusing on Protected Health Information (PHI, Youtube video).