Do Your Faxes Tell a Story?
“Hiya I’m a Fax, not just any fax a healthcare fax, which means I’m going to be around a looooong time! Today someone needed me to help them get patient records from their office to a hospital and I, as always, was the only trusted and efficient way of sending those records. They dialed the number and off I went, I started transmitting the 73 pages of records right away. I tried 3 time and the number was busy, I tried a 4th time and I FINALLY got through. I delivered 72 pages and somewhere down the line my call got dropped, but I’m a fax and I can’t give up! I tried one last time and successfully delivered all 73 pages to the hospital; I’d saved the day once again. Approximately 2.5 hours after I initiated my process, I provided my sender with a confirmation page and my job was done. The End”
Today was a good day for that fax. On a bad day, that fax would have attempted to deliver up to ten times and ended in a failure rather than a success confirmation. Statically, as the page counts of faxes increase the success rate drastically decreases, but no matter the end result the story always ends with a Fax Confirmed Failed or Fax Confirmed Successful.
Those of us who work in the healthcare industry know that this fax’s story extends far past that. What if your faxes ALWAYS went through and your confirmations came back like this:
7/27/2019 10:54 AM “Susan from billing pulled your fax off of the fax machine, and is working to confirm insurance”
7/28/2019 8:34 AM “Susan confirmed benefits and has given referral to referrals department for scheduling”
7/31/2019 9:22 AM “Jonathan from Referrals Department scheduled patient John Doe, DOB 6/1/1951, for an appointment on 8/22/2019 @ 9:45 AM with Dr.Smith”
How much time would fax confirmation like this save you and your staff? Could this reduce phone calls and re-faxes to check the status of requests? How would this affect care coordination?
The truth is, this is not just a dream of “what if.” This is a reality across some healthcare communities today. These are also NOT faxes, but true point to point secure communications that have replaced faxing through a streamlined workflow that users easily adapt to. This is their reality; can it be yours?
Real Life Audit Trail of a Referral on HIENetworks.com
I’m sure you are thinking something like “if this tech is really out there why isn’t EVERYONE using it”…and I would have to say I ask myself that question on the daily. The truth of the matter is that over the years I’ve been given many reasons why faxing is the ONLY reliable communication tool for healthcare and how everything else is just a passing phase. I can’t get into all of that now, as their are far to many excuses, I mean reasons, to cover before you lose interest. Follow my blog and join me on the quest to under why the healthcare industry won’t let go of faxing when better alternatives are on the table.
– Katie Bradley, Workflow Engineer & Account Manager for Centralis Health
