We all know that feeling of anger and frustration that we get when arriving to a Doctor’s office for the first time. The moment you walk in the door the polite nurse says to you “I’m going to need you to fill out this paperwork for me!” Then off we go to our seat in the waiting room, armed with a pen and a clipboard, to fill out these papers. We all think “It’s probably not going to be so bad,” until ten minutes later when your hand starts cramping up and you begin digging through old papers of your own and calling every office on the planet to obtain the information needed to fill out the form. Finally done, you walk up front, where they either hand you more forms or tell you to sit for a long period of time as they process the paperwork.
Finally time to go back to the room. After waiting another fifteen or so minutes, the doctor walks in and greets you. Now, you patiently stand there as the doctor reads the extensive amount of information you filled out in your paperwork at the front desk. By now, your hand and your brain are probably hurting you! Or how about the time when records become lost? When we go to ask for some information or they try to pull up a file and all we get are an “I’m sorry but I seemed to have misplaced your file!” At this point, we just want to throw our hands in the air and give up.
This used to be the way of things, no questions asked. However, in the past thirty years, technology has advanced to such an impressive point that we can literally do almost anything on the web. So with the technology we currently have, what can be paperless today? How about billing, receipting, letter management, clinical notes, appointment and procedure booking, prescribing, test ordering, income documentation, and much much much more.
So yes this all sounds fantastic in theory, but what are the real benefits of this? How will my company be improved? Well we are glad you asked! When an office says they are going paperless, they are scanning documents into their computer system to eliminate filing cabinets! This allows for a multitude of different things. For one, you can safely access your documents from anywhere, such as from the web or synchronizing files. Let’s not forget about natural disasters. What if a robbery occurs or a fire burns the place down? Now, poof, your files are gone. When stored electronically, you can rest easy knowing your patient information is safe!
One of the most basic benefits we have here is MORE SPACE! We all remember walking to the front desk of an office and seeing a wall full of files taller than Yao Ming! Hundreds of thousands of files, most looking cluttered, overstuffed, or unorganized. With electronic files, all of your files are in your computer, eliminating the massive (and potentially hazardous) file cabinets! There are many cases of injury via these monstrous metal sliding file cabinets like those found in doctor’s offices! Read once instance here.
One often overlooked benefit of electronic filing is the ability of a company to handle growth.Let’s say you opened a business anticipating about 500 clients, so you purchased an office to accommodate that size. After a few years, your company grows in popularity and now you have about 3,000 clients. Now you have a little over 30,000 pieces of paper to track and store in the 3,000 client records! With that much paper to keep track of, you will not only need to purchase more space and hire more people to track and file these items, but if one gets misplaced, government laws such as HIPAA regulations can shut your entire business down. Do yourself a favor and make things a little easier!
Lastly, let’s not overlook the cost of paper itself! On average, you can get about 500 sheets of paper for $2.99. Let’s say over one year you use about 30,000 for each client, throw in 5,000 for messed up forms you discard of, and 15,000 for office materials. That’s 50,000 sheets of paper. This is a SAFE estimate, usually people end up using much more than this! So for 50,000 sheets of paper, that’s about $300.00 a year. If the businessman in you sees that as no big deal, then we can at least play at your heart strings. One tree can be used to create roughly 8,300 sheets of paper. If you are using 50,000 sheets per year, that’s 6.25 trees. And that is a rough estimate, and your office alone! Think of every doctors office in the world!
Here at Advantec, we create software that enables you to transform your business into a paperless one. Our auditing tools record every key piece of information so you will never need to dig around looking for a paper trail again. Also, our client and employee managers allows you to store the basic information about each employee. If you need to schedule appointments and bill your customers, we have a module for that, too!
So if you were hearing all the buzz about paperless offices and wanted to learn a little more, hopefully we gave you some quick insight into why this conversion is so advantageous! If you have any questions or want to learn how to take the first steps into becoming a paperless company, visit our website! We would be happy to provide you with all the information you are seeking!