Jim,
I'm wondering how you are importing the items, especially the old records. If you are scanning and saving the item, then importing into AC though the "import new" button in the imported items tab of the patient's chart... the message in your inbox should be "Signoff: CHART ITEM for JOHN DOE". If you double click this message, the "Sign-off Multiple Imported Items" window should pop up, where you can fill the check boxes for all the ones that just need to be signed but not addressed (old records)... and they will rapidly disappear from your inbox. This may be the list you are referring to when you note "1. Click on message in inbox
2. Bring up long list of things to sign"
If you don't like going to the Multiple Sign-off list for the ones that need individual attention, you can pull up the imported item from your inbox message list by right clicking on that message. This brings up a menu that includes "Pull imported items"... which does just that, and the items that have yet to be signed off should be appearing in red. After addressing it, you can sign-off on this by right clicking on the red item and choosing "sign-off item".
I use UpDox to import new faxes that come in (faxes come into my network as a PDF). When using this to import, the message in my inbox says "IMPORTED: yada yada yada", the yadas of course being whatever my staff enters in as the subject as they are importing in UpDox. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to have these items (with the "IMPORTED" message) show up on the "Sign-Off Mutiple Imported Items" list, but it doesn't bother me too much since these faxes usually need to be addressed individually anyway. If using UpDox, you can have the system send or not send a message with each import...that's the only way I can get the "No Sign-off Needed" items to come in needing sign-off (which I do only by accident).
