| Paperless Faxing |
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| Written by Jennifer Flaten | ||||||||
| Wednesday, 13 August 2008 19:00 | ||||||||
Busy practices are always on the lookout for ways to streamline their procedures. One way to increase efficiency and save time is to use paperless faxing, sometimes called digital faxing. Paperless faxing uses software such as Zetafax of WinFax to send documents from your computer to a fax machine. The hardware needed is a fax modem in your computer and a dedicated fax line. If you are using a practice management system or electronic health records system it is easy to integrate Zetafax to work with your system. Thus, allowing patient information to be sent with a click of the mouse. It can also work other desktop applications to manage all of the inbound/outbound faxes that the practice receives. Where the most benefit can be seen is with the daily interaction between the physician's office and the pharmacies. Inbound requests for refills can be easily managed and filed. Plus, outbound prescription orders are easy to fax because Zetafax software allows the user to create a directory of pharmacies that are used on a regular basis, with notations about patients preferred pharmacies. The fax software also allows you to add your digital signatures to the documents. If your practice is considering having both inbound and outbound faxes received on the computer, you may want to install separate inbound and outbound modems. This prevents the system from becoming clogged. Having all your faxes as digital documents means it is easy to merge with the patients existing EHR. All outgoing/incoming information is stored in the patients record for easy reference. Another benefit from paperless faxing is increased confidentiality. Documents are no longer lying out on the fax tray for anyone to see. Also, fax software utilizes alarm boxes that pop up if the fax does not go through for some reason. Your staff will know immediately if an item needs to be resent. When an item does need to be resent, it is amazing how much time can be saved with the ability to just open the electronic record and click a couple of times to send the document on its way. | ||||||||
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About the Author: Kurt Martin is a Founder and Group Publisher of The Progressive Media Group (PMG) and the Publisher of MedTech Journal. During his 4 years as Publisher of The NonProfit Times, he grew the imprint from a single newspaper to a community of websites, online job boards, email newsletters and digital editions. Prior to taking the role of Publisher he was the East Coast Sales Manager for Broad Daylight, Inc. a knowledgebase company. He also held management roles in advertising and ciruclation sales at American Banker/Bond Buyer (Thomson), Faulkner & Grey (Thomson) and SourceMedia (Investcorp.) Kurt graduated from Montclair State University with a B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration. |
