HIPAA fax for assisted living facilities: BAA, orders and price

An assisted living facility of 5 people sending and receiving 500 pages a month pays $9.99 a month billed annually for HIPAA fax with a signed BAA on Fax Pigeon Standard, against $13.65 at SRFax, $33.33 at eFax Business and $93.29 at iFax; 10 people pay the same $9.99.

What is the best HIPAA compliant fax for an assisted living facility?

Fax Pigeon has the lowest price with a BAA for an assisted living facility among SRFax, eFax, iFax, Fax.Plus, WestFax and Sfax, at 500 and at 1,000 pages a month. Every Fax Pigeon plan includes unlimited people, so a facility's price moves with its pages and never with its staff. The BAA is signed at sign-up and can be read at faxpigeon.com/baa before paying. Every paid plan sends and receives from the facility's own number.

Fax Pigeon is HIPAA-compliant online fax for practices of any size, from solo practices to teams of 100 or more. Fax Pigeon has no team plans. The same plans fit residential care facilities for the elderly, memory care communities, adult family homes and personal care homes.

What does an assisted living facility fax, and where does it go?

An assisted living facility handles prescriber orders, prescriptions, incident reports and admission exams, and a DEA or state licensing rule sets where each goes and whether a fax counts. Washington, California and Florida appear below as examples, and each facility's own state's current rule governs.

The table names each document, where it goes and the rule behind it.

Can an assisted living facility fax a Schedule II prescription?

The DEA lets a practitioner or the practitioner's agent fax a Schedule II prescription for a resident of a long term care facility to the dispensing pharmacy, and its text does not say whether a given assisted living community is a long term care facility. Its definition in 21 CFR 1300.01 reads "a nursing home, retirement care, mental care or other facility or institution which provides extended health care to resident patients." Where the exception applies, the fax serves as the original written prescription.

Outside the long term care, hospice and compounded-infusion exceptions, a faxed Schedule II prescription needs the original manually signed prescription presented to the pharmacist before dispensing. A computer-generated controlled-substance prescription that is printed out or faxed must be manually signed (21 CFR 1306.05).

Medicare Part D leaves controlled-substance prescriptions written for a beneficiary in a long-term care facility out of its e-prescribing compliance count until January 1, 2028 (42 CFR 423.160). The prescriber's side of these rules is in when a doctor can fax a prescription to a pharmacy.

Can incident reports go to the state by fax?

An assisted living facility's incident reports go to the state by fax in California for some events and never in Florida, whose agency accepts no faxed adverse incident report.

California's regulations for residential care facilities for the elderly, as the Department of Social Services posts them, take an outbreak, poisoning or catastrophe report by telephone or facsimile within 24 hours. They call for a written report to the licensing agency and to the person responsible for the resident within seven days of listed events. The list covers the death of a resident from any cause, a serious injury the attending physician determines, and any incident that threatens a resident's welfare, safety or health.

The report carries the resident's details, the date and nature of the event, the attending physician's findings and treatment, and the disposition of the case. The Unusual Incident/Injury Report form, LIC 624, adds a notice to the licensing agency, placement agency and responsible persons by the next working day.

Washington's Department of Social and Health Services takes the initial mandatory report and the five-working-days follow-up in its Online Incident Report portal, which takes PDF uploads. A reporter who lacks the information or has trouble with the form calls the Complaint Resolution Unit hotline at 1-800-562-6078.

Florida's statute gives an assisted living facility 1 business day for the preliminary adverse incident report and 15 days for the full report, both through the agency's online portal, or by email when the portal is offline. The Agency for Health Care Administration's report submission guide says faxed or mailed report submissions are not accepted.

Is an assisted living facility a HIPAA covered entity?

An assisted living facility is a HIPAA covered entity only if it transmits health information electronically in connection with a transaction for which HHS has adopted a standard, the condition HHS attaches to nursing homes and the other providers on its list of covered entities.

HHS says a covered entity needs no business associate agreement to disclose protected health information to a health care provider for treatment, and that one provider may send it to another by fax. HHS's cloud guidance makes a service that creates, receives, maintains or transmits ePHI for a covered entity that entity's business associate, and a fax service that stores a covered facility's faxes is one. Every Fax Pigeon plan includes a signed BAA.

Nursing homes certified for Medicare and Medicaid answer to federal rules on top of HIPAA. Under 42 CFR 483.30, a physician, physician assistant, nurse practitioner or clinical nurse specialist provides orders for a resident's immediate care. Under 42 CFR 483.12, an allegation involving abuse or serious bodily injury is reported within 2 hours and others within 24 hours, and investigation results go to the State Survey Agency within 5 working days. What a nursing home needs from a HIPAA fax service covers those facilities.

What does HIPAA fax cost an assisted living facility?

HIPAA fax costs an assisted living facility $9.99 a month billed annually on Fax Pigeon Standard for 500 pages sent and received, or $16.99 on Plus for 1,000 pages, at the same price for 5 people or 10.

The table shows the cheapest plan with a BAA for 5 people, as a price a month, at 500 and 1,000 pages sent and received.

At 500 pages billed annually for 5 people, Fax Pigeon comes to $119.88 a year against $163.80 at SRFax, $399.96 at eFax and $1,119.48 at iFax. eFax Business charges 7 cents for each page over the plan.

The table shows the cheapest plan with a BAA for 10 people, as a price a month, at 500 and 1,000 pages sent and received.

Ten people move eFax Business to $75.00 a month billed annually, because each user past 5 is $10 a month or $100 a year. A sixth user moves WestFax from Team to Team 3,000 at $69.99. WestFax bills month to month only. iFax's Terms of Use turn on an automatic top-up by default, and when usage reaches 95% of the plan limit, iFax adds credits and charges the payment method.

An extra page costs 5 cents on Standard and 4 cents on Plus, and an upgrade takes effect right away at the prorated difference.

Can every shift share one fax number?

Every shift at an assisted living facility can share one Fax Pigeon number, because every plan includes unlimited people and adding people costs nothing. Everyone shares one inbox and one page allowance. The shared inbox has roles and assignment, and every plan includes AI summaries, e-signatures, fax from email and delivery proof for every delivered fax.

The facility's current number moves over free on every paid plan, started at sign-up or from Settings. Most transfers finish in 5 to 15 business days, and the number keeps working with the current provider until then. eFax's Customer Agreement lists $40 a number to port in, SRFax charges $25 for a local number and WestFax $20.

Who should switch, and to what?

An assisted living facility should switch to Fax Pigeon Standard or Plus when its fax service prices by the user, signs a BAA only on a higher plan, or adds credits on its own. At 500 pages billed annually, a 10-person facility pays $780.12 a year more on eFax Business than on Fax Pigeon Standard. Fax.Plus includes a BAA on Enterprise only, at $79.99 a month billed annually for 4,000 pages, and Sfax prints BAA Available from its Plus plan up.

Hospice and home health agencies that serve residents have their own pages: HIPAA fax for hospice agencies and HIPAA fax for home health agencies.

* Prices last verified October 19, 2026, at each provider's own site. Fax Pigeon is not affiliated with SRFax, eFax, iFax, Fax.Plus, WestFax or Sfax.