I wouldn't be so blase. First, that was all true BEFORE Microsoft made Windows a marketing platform so all bets are off now. Also, that decision (what is safe a

I wouldn't be so blase. First, that was all true BEFORE Microsoft made Windows a marketing platform so all bets are off now. Also, that decision (what is safe and not safe) is not up to the regulated business to make, its up to the regulators. If you have not worked in a highly regulated business you can't know what this means in terms of arbitrary and unnecessary rulings and requirements imposed on a business, regardless of whether they make any sense. Moreover, for the first 10 years of its existence, HIPAA was a homeless step-child in the Federal government but fairly recently (5 years?) it found a enforcement home (and more importantly, a budget) in the Health and Human Services department. They are now building their budget and have developed their enforcement strategy that started with big insurance companies and large PPO/HMOs (you may have heard of some big cases in the news). HHS's plan is to ultimately push enforcement all the way down to the practice level. FYI, most IT companies don't know this but back in 2012 or 2013 the new HIPAA enforcement division issued a decree that HIPAA applies directly to any IT companies that service organizations that handle personal health data. Prior to that proclamation I was operating under a signed declaration with my clients that my business was not responsible for HIPAA enforcement or violations (I just fixed the computers). That method of limiting my exposure and liability, according to my lawyer, was no longer feasible and I could be hit directly with HIPAA violations and fines and they required onerous documentation and procedures when dealing with PHI. At that point, at significant cut to my income, I dropped all my healthcare/medical clients. In the long run the regulatory agencies are captured by the regulated business and the requirements imposed are fairly sensible but by my guess is that we are at least a decade away from that regarding HIPAA especially considering its only now starting to be enforced with audits and fines.