Digital fax automatically scales up and down based on the fax volume, so organizations do not need to over-invest upfront in fax server processing power. At the same time, the system does not time out at peak times due to the lack of processing power. This is what makes digital faxing a more reliable alternative to paper and server-based faxes. The technology addresses the need for both speed and reliability in today’s utilization management, discharge planning, care coordination, attachment processing, and other communication requirements supporting value-based care delivery and reimbursement.
For example, a member of a hospital utilization management team needs to submit attachments for a concurrent review request authorizing an extended inpatient stay. Using cloud-based digital fax integrated with the EHR or utilization management system, they can send the required information, such as labs or clinical notes, within the EHR workflow, without a concern that it is delayed or does not go through.
Use artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline inbound fax triage Provider and payer organizations processing a high volume of inbound documents and interested in further increasing staff efficiency can consider leveraging intelligent document automation. Intelligent data extraction is a new and innovative application of AI technology that extends digital fax and further digitizes and streamline document processing workflows.
For instance, with inbound faxes, AI can help automate the manual work of sorting inbound digital faxes by predefined categories. AI can automatically understand types of documents, such as referrals or requests for additional medical documentation for medical necessity review. Instead of a staff member printing out and processing documents, a centralized queue inspection in a secure web portal helps ensure that all incoming documents are properly categorized and labeled so they can be handled in order of priority.
Further, digital fax systems featuring machine learning and natural language processing capabilities can extract discrete patient data currently locked in faxed documents. Extracted data is used to index or label document images with patient information. Staff no longer have to open each fax image from a long list to identify to which patient each fax pertains. One hospital estimated they were able to double the number of incoming fax referrals each staff member could handle per hour because they no longer needed to open each image to identify the correct fax.
