Healthcare uses faxes mostly because HIPAA rules particular to format and security of electronic communications don't apply to faxes; it's a compliance hack.
I can, however, point you to the relevant section of HIPAA regulations on which it rests, the definition of “electronic media” at 45 CFR § 160.103, specifically this bit: “Certain transmissions, including of paper, via facsimile, and of voice, via telephone, are not considered to be transmissions via electronic media if the information being exchanged did not exist in electronic form immediately before the transmission.”
So you need to print them out before faxing? PDF->Fax wouldn't work with that definition.