HIPAA-Compliant AI: Our LongevityPRO Case Study

Healthcare organizations face a critical challenge: leveraging AI to improve patient outcomes while protecting sensitive health information. When LongevityPRO approached us, they needed an AI system that could process thousands of medical documents daily while ensuring zero PHI (Protected Health Information) leakage.

The Challenge

LongevityPRO needed to analyze clinical notes, lab results, and patient records to provide personalized health insights. The challenge: how do you use powerful LLMs without exposing sensitive patient data to external APIs?

Our Solution: Multi-Layer PII Protection

1. Pre-Processing Detection

Before any document reaches an LLM, our custom NER (Named Entity Recognition) model scans for 18 categories of PHI including names, dates, medical record numbers, and device identifiers.

2. Context-Aware Redaction

Simple regex isn't enough. Our system understands context—distinguishing between a doctor's name (often okay to keep) and a patient's name (must be redacted).

3. Synthetic Data Replacement

Instead of just removing data, we replace it with realistic synthetic values. This preserves document structure and improves AI analysis quality.

4. Audit Trail & Reversibility

Every redaction is logged. Authorized users can reverse redactions for legitimate medical purposes while maintaining a complete audit trail.

Technical Implementation

The system combines several AI approaches:

• Fine-tuned BERT model for medical entity recognition
• Rule-based validation for structured data (SSNs, phone numbers)
• Claude API for complex document understanding (with pre-redacted inputs)
• Human-in-the-loop for edge cases and quality assurance

Results

After 6 months in production:

• 99.7% accuracy in PII detection (validated against manually reviewed samples)
• Processing time reduced from 45 minutes to 3 minutes per document
• Zero HIPAA violations or PHI exposure incidents
• Passed independent security audit with no critical findings