Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Electronic Signatures

We implemented electronic faxing and document management using paperport and a brother MFD about 2 months ago. I was a little nervous at first due to all the things I read on the board about recent paperport issues but things seem to be going well so far. My question is around the use of the scanned signature and the electronic stamps in paperport. Are these items considered to be Stamps or do they fall into the Electronic signature category? If you manage your documents electronically, how are you dealing with faxed orders requiring your signature?
At this time our physician places her scanned signature along with a dynamic stamp that places the date and time on the document. Just recently we've gotten several items back from various places indicating they don’t accept stamps.
I’ve found several articles about the subject but I can’t seem to find anything that helps answer my question.

Thanks.

I consider the Paperport signature a stamp. However, I have had very few issues anywhere in my region other than with Medicare forms such as diabetic supplies. I do get refusals from some mail order pharmacies in Arizona and Kansas that say they cannot accept stamped signatures. I fax back to them that I will not fax an original signature and that, if they cannot accept stamps, they will have to send me the form along with a SAS. Now, because you live in Kansas, your laws may be different and stamping may not be accepted anywhere in your state.

Thanks for your response Leslie. I guess we will just have to deal with those as they come. I'll also look up the state specific law and see what I can find out.
Every day I learn something new that just makes me scratch my head. All this push to get everything electronic but they still want you to print paper, manually sign and then fax it back over a standard phone line. You never know if that fax machine is secure or not...

I agree with Leslie. If they don't want my electronic signature, call someone else to sign it.

For a few months, I have been exclusively signing and faxing back orders using the electronic document mark up feature in Updox. It is very flexible, allowing text fields, redacting (blacking out) areas, arrows, circles, check marks, and of course, a user-generated stored signature for each user.

The only protest I have received so far was a medical supply store that said they could not accept a "stamped" date. We notified them it was typed, not stamped, and they were happy.

In June 2010, new federal laws removed further doubt about the validity of electronic records, accepting both records & signatures.

My practice has been scanning & archiving, and then shredding our paper records since 2007, and we have not yet had a challenge from an insurer, government agency or attorney when we provided scanned records.

Apparently, digital signatures and electronic signatures are different. I recall when we first started faxing scripts several area pharmacies wouldn't take it. Now, I can pressure my patients to go elsewhere, but in the end I can't just tell Rite Aid, I won't use them. So, they tell me that Electronic Signature below the name as is the default in AC scripts wouldn't work, but it had to say Digitally signed by... OK stupid. Then one of my MAs came up with a brilliant workaround. She changed my name in my user account from Bert Adams, MD to:

First name: Digitally signed by Bert Last name: Adams MD

This, of course, came out:

Digitally signed by Bert Adams, MD

Still had the electronic signature in place below. And, it looked funny on the letters, but who cares. Now the irony is now that I am using ePrescribe, and I only fax a few, they all go through even with just my name being the old way.

Technically, true digital signatures are ones with private keys and public keys and certificates and the like. But, that takes both sides having them. Right.

It is quite easy to make a stamp for AC or PDFs, etc. I don't know how Paperport does it. But, if you make a stamped signature for a PDF by just scanning it in, it will likely work, but you risk having the issue of the white background.

If you make a transparent stamp, then you don't have to worry about the white background covering anything up. In fact, I go out of my way to make sure it overlaps things.

When I was setting up UpDox for a client, I learned a trick from them for handling that - you have to take the signature into an editing program and select and drop out of of the white so all you have left is a truly transparent signature.

It takes some time, and if you don't use image editing software regularly, I would make incremental saves as you go, because you'll make mistakes.

Once done, you have a signature that you can use in AC, and it works great in other uses because any lines you drag it on top of show through like a regular signature.

I hope this all settles down soon. It seems so silly that my nurse can call in a prescription, but the same pharmacy won't accept a fax with my signature generated off a machine to which only I hold the password. Geesh.

http://tinyurl.com/transparent-sigs

Step by step video of how to make your own transparent stamp using Adobe. Otherwise, you can use Photoshop, but that is a bit pricey. You can trial it though.

The author will also make a transparent stamp of your signature for $30 if you wish.

Since I'm a FOSS fan, I'll plug Paint.NET.

http://www.getpaint.net/

As Wendell says, "... and it's FREE. Did I mention it's FREE?"

I may not have the quote exactly right, but Wendell does it well.

...it runs on Windows. Did I mention it runs on Windows?

So does GIMP, which I also use regularly(because I can use it on whichever platform I'm on), but in a nod to you Bert, I plugged the Windows Freeware with the M$ like name.

.... and yes, I was Swyping just a while ago, while running a remote session, and finishing a phone call. Swype away Bert!

So, one important question on Swyping. Maybe it has something to do with a lot of predicted words. But, it seems it should be able to enter a word it doesn't know just like a keyboard would. I was trying to tell Adam, I was going to the Ichiban (a Japanese restaurant). Of course Swyper the fox, didn't know the word. I tried and tried. No luck. So, I did add it to the dictionary and it did it first try. But, one would think that at least it would type: Icgivan. Damn that h and n.

I guess if this were like typing class only swyping class, I should swype: The big red hen, the big red hen. The big red hen. The big red hen ate at the Ichiban with other hens.

Apparently there is a difference between a mechanical and a computer stamp. One of the medical supply places had a statement that computer stamps were acceptable to HCFA, which is apparently the rub. I have put a statement in my electronic cover sheet that the signature is computer generated and not a stamp, and as such is acceptable to HCFA. If they will not accept this, they need to send an original with a SASE for a reply. I rarely get the latter.

I downloaded Paint.net for free. Once I figured out the steps to make it transparent it was easy and quick. The signature looks much, much better.

Way to go Greg - congratulations, and thanks for taking the time to drop back in and update the board on how that turned out for you!

Yes, Greg, thanks for getting back to us. A transparent signature is much better, and, in fact, looks identical to the real thing (to a point). The biggest mistake people make is signing their name too legibly so that it appears different than the usual one.

In a perfect world, you would do 20 signatures and they would rotate so they all looked a little different.