So, you say you have a “paperless office”—you’ve traded your packed-to-the-brim file cabinets for a scanner and electronic document management system. You upload your faxed orders and referrals and shred and recycle the original documents. You no longer have to worry about storing piles of paperwork, and you’re probably pretty happy. Yes, your “paperless” system gets the job done, but it can get even better.
The vision of a paperless office has evolved. Today, HME businesses can be even truer to the term “paperless” by skipping the print-and-scan steps of intake and digitally streamlining the connection between the fax machine and the patient on-boarding process—no printing and scanning required.
The Pitfalls of Printing
A colleague of mine is often heard saying “the print button is your enemy.” It’s true—not only does printing cost you money in the traditional sense by using up your office’s ink and paper and requiring high quality fax and copier machines, but it also costs the time it takes for a staff member to scan and upload each document you receive. Plus, no matter how organized you try to be, the print-and-scan strategy can become complicated and papers get lost, resulting in write-offs and messy audits.
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Out with the Old, In with Paperless 2.0
We know that nearly every step of the revenue cycle generates new documents that need to be tracked and stored somewhere, so you can’t ditch document storage altogether. The solution? TIMS Inbound Document Routing and TIMS Imaging systems that integrate with your core TIMS system. The advantages go far beyond just reducing paper use:
We live in a digital age, so why drown yourself in a sea of paperwork? Intake is just the beginning. Once you’ve mastered going paperless here, you can examine your processes for collecting and managing documents required prior to submitting a claim and your delivery/proof of delivery documents.
This article was originally written by Patty Harrison of Computers Unlimited. Published 2018-05-02. Modified 2018-05-02.