Wellcare / Centene Annual Certification Training (ACT) Practice Test 2025 - Free ACT Certification Practice Questions and Study Guide

Protected Health Information (PHI) refers to any information that can be used to identify an individual and relates to their health condition, the provision of healthcare, or payment for healthcare. It includes a wide range of health-related data, as long as it is linked to an individual and is not publicly available.

The health insurance policy number is a perfect example of PHI. This number is directly tied to an individual's insurance record, which contains sensitive information about their health care. Because it can be used to identify a specific person and is related to their medical history or health care coverage, it meets the criteria set by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for protecting individual privacy.

On the other hand, public health data does not typically identify individuals and is collected for statistical purposes rather than for direct personal management. Weather information and general public statistics similarly do not pertain to health specifics of individuals and are not linked to personal identifiers, making them irrelevant when defining PHI. This distinction illustrates the stringent standards that govern the classification of health information, emphasizing the significance of individual identifiers in determining whether data qualifies as PHI.