EHRs and other clinical systems do not capture patient information and format medical documentation in a standardized manner. Clinical documentation style sheets vary from one clinical application to another. The documentation templates used by clinical systems typically allow for many free text entries that payers and other provider systems may not recognize. Consequently, providers turn to the universality of fax and mail to deliver attachments.

In another effort to provide an alternative to fax and mail, many health plans and third-party health information services vendors offer web portals that allow providers to upload medical attachments in a PDF format. However, these portals have not been widely embraced by providers because they do not represent efficient automation or real administrative workflow simplification. Providers still need to manage unique logins and passwords and manually re-enter patient and clinical data into the portals.


The lack of federal standards for electronic attachments has deterred vendors, providers, and plans from investing in solutions to fully digitize document exchange. Many changes in healthcare technology infrastructure are disruptive and expensive to implement, and organizations are justly cautious.

Take the first steps to a fully digital document exchange strategy without significant disruption
Nevertheless, hospital and post-acute care case managers and payer organizations want to find ways to digitize and automate medical communications processes without disrupting workflows or requiring an entire healthcare technology infrastructure overhaul. Several methods of information exchange are available, including the following two-step approach. Step one: organizations can start small by transitioning from paper to a fully digital cloud-based fax document exchange. Step two: organizations interested in further automating the document workflow can leverage artificial intelligence (AI)-based data extraction capabilities.

Transitioning from traditional to cloud-based fax allows payers and providers to modernize their document processing capabilities. All that is needed is to swap existing fax numbers to a digital fax platform. This is the first step in implementing a fully digital document exchange strategy. It enables secure, encrypted, HIPAA-compliant electronic exchange of patient information to and from the EHR and other healthcare applications. Digital fax can be integrated with administrative, clinical, or financial applications to send and receive faxes from within existing workflows.

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