Who uses fax machines anymore? Healthcare does [video]

In today's digital age, the notion of sending faxes sounds archaic. It might come as a shock to older generations that newer generations are simply outgrowing faxing – to the point where they won't know what it is, or how it works. But why are we talking about fax machines? Do people still use them? Simply put: yes.

In the healthcare industry, fax machines are still alive and well. With that said, we decided to have our millennial staff send a fax so they could feel our customers' pain.

Who is the undisputed Fax Sending Champion?

1. Arianna: 2 min 19 sec
2. Jonathan: 2 min 21 sec
3. Mitch: 2 min 40 secs
4. Phuong: 2 min 50 sec
5. Renee: 4 min
6. Evan: 4 min 30 sec
7. Colin: 5 min 54 sec
8. Greg: 8-10min

1. Hoala: 2 min 26 sec
2. Roger: 2 min 43 sec
3. Shannon: 3 min 5 sec

As you can see, some of the millennial staff were able to figure out the foreign fax machine in a matter of minutes (and on par with their Generation X colleagues). While a few minutes may not seem that long in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to sending PHI or other important information, that can be an eternity. Especially when you have HIPAA compliant encrypted email as an easy, secure and much faster alternative.

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Why does the healthcare industry still send faxes?

There has been some debate about why medical practices still rely on fax machines considering faxes can be lost, dropped, or not even sent. Why rely on this archaic method for transferring important health information when ePHI and electronic prescriptions exist, and are becoming more popular? Again, to simply put it: some medical professionals are reluctant, hesitant, or too uncertain to change their ways.

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Faxing became prevalent in the healthcare industry primarily because of all the paperwork involved in the medical profession. By switching to an electronic method, some medical professionals have the misconception that transferring PHI will become more complicated. Questions arise such as, "How does encryption work? Will I need to remember passwords? Will my recipient need a password to open their emails?" and so on. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, so it's understandable that people and industries take longer to catch up. But is that any excuse for hospitals to require their doctors to still use pagers? I digress. The key takeaway here:  sending sensitive information via encrypted emails is not as big and scary as it sounds.

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If you want your practice to stay at a competitive advantage, you need to keep up with the times. Yes, there was a time when fax machines were shiny, new and fast. But now, encrypted emails can leave our smartphones, hit an antenna, fly to space, come back to earth, hit another antenna and then hit the recipient’s phone in the time it takes you to punch in a ten digit phone number on a plastic box sitting on top of your filing cabinet. It’s time for a change – but don’t worry, we will help you every step of the way.

Connect with us to learn more about our easy HIPAA compliant email solutions.

The time you save sending faxes can be put towards seeing more patients, which means more revenue for your practice.