Keeping a parent's information private

If you're managing a parent's paperwork, you already know the pile. Medicare notices. Insurance letters. Pharmacy printouts. The patient portal you got locked out of twice.

AI is genuinely good at this pile. It can turn a three-page insurance letter into two sentences and a deadline. But the paper on your kitchen table is full of things that should never leave it.

Here's how we'd handle it.

Step 1: Ask her

This is her information, not yours. Before you paste anything about her into any app, tell her what you're doing and ask.

• Most parents say yes once they hear it's about getting the paperwork under control.
• Some won't. That's their call, and it's worth respecting even when it makes your life harder.
• If she can't decide for herself anymore, that's when the legal paperwork in Step 4 matters.

Step 2: Know what HIPAA does and doesn't cover

People assume medical information is protected everywhere. It isn't.

• HIPAA covers her doctors, her health plan and the businesses they work with. It doesn't cover you, a family member.
• Once records leave the doctor's office at the patient's request, they're no longer protected by HIPAA. That includes whatever you paste into a consumer AI app.

So the protection is you. That's what the next step is for.

Step 3: Strip before you paste

Take these out, every time

• Her name and date of birth
• Her Medicare number, Social Security number, and any insurance member or policy number
• Bank and card account numbers
• Her home address and phone number
• Medical record numbers and claim numbers

Keep these in, they're what you need help with

• Her age and the general situation: "my 81-year-old father with diabetes"
• Dates of service and dollar amounts
• What the letter is asking you to do, and by when

For paper documents

Cross out the identifying details before you take the photo. A thick marker works. So does a sticky note over the top section.

Use the right kind of chat

• For one-off documents, use Claude's incognito chat (the ghost icon) or ChatGPT's Temporary Chat. Neither saves to your history or memory, and neither is used for training. Both may still be kept for up to 30 days.
• For ongoing care, a dedicated project for her paperwork keeps it organized. Write a line in the project instructions: never include her name, birth date or ID numbers in anything you produce.
• Don't give AI access to her bank or patient portal. Anthropic itself advises against using Claude's browser tool on banking or healthcare sites.

Step 4: Get the paperwork that lets you act for her

AI can help you understand the pile. These forms let you actually do something about it.

• Medicare authorization (Form CMS-10106). Lets 1-800-MEDICARE talk to you about her. She signs it, or her legal representative signs with proof attached. It can cover everything or only some topics, and she can cancel it anytime.
• Talking to her doctors. Doctors and plans may share information with family members involved in her care if she agrees or doesn't object. They aren't required to.
• Legal authority over her health care decisions, such as a guardianship or the right health care document, can make you her "personal representative." Your access then matches the scope of that authority, and state law sets the details. In Florida, ask about a designation of health care surrogate.

We're not lawyers, and this isn't legal advice. An elder law attorney can tell you what she needs in Florida and set it up properly.

Step 5: Teach her the scams

Scammers use AI too, and parents in their 70s and 80s are exactly who they aim it at.

• The numbers are real. The FBI's 2025 report found people over 60 lost $7.7 billion to online fraud, up 59% from the year before.
• Voices can be faked. Scammers need only a few seconds of someone's voice to clone it. If "you" call her in a panic asking for money, she should hang up and call you back on your real number.
• Medicare won't call to sell her anything. It only calls in limited cases, like returning her call. Caller ID can be faked. Hang up and dial 1-800-MEDICARE directly.
• Open enrollment is peak scam season. It runs October 15 to December 7.

What we're still not sure about

Every family draws this line differently. Some siblings want every detail shared in a group chat. Some parents want almost nothing written down. We don't think there's one right answer, but we think the conversation with her has to happen before the technology does.

Checked against HHS, CMS, Medicare.gov, Anthropic's help pages and the FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report, October 2026. This page is general information, not legal advice.