Protected Health Information has a specific meaning under HIPAA. It is any medical information that contains one of 18 HIPAA identifiers and is used in the payment for healthcare or other healthcare-related operations. PHI is a subset of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), which is any sensitive information that can be used to identify an individual. PII becomes PHI if it relates to a patient’s health status, if it is used in healthcare operations, or if it is created, maintained, or transmitted by a Covered Entity.