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I'm looking for a multipurpose Printer/Scanner.

Any recommendations?

I have a Samsung SCX machine that does everyhting you need
Go to the neweggsite - www.newegg.com & type in Samsung SCX in the search & look at the Samsung SCX 4826 & 4828 specs.
They are networked printers & you scan in PDF & other formats. You can also receive your faxes via email with these machines in PDF format. I have these machines for years and they have served me well. I am sure others on this board have their own favorites.
Good luck
Grenville

Question:
Is receiving faxes as emails secure, HIPPA Compliant?
That would be a really good option for me.

The Brother MFC fax machines with PC fax are the other options. There are a number of them with different features I have both a MFC 7810 and 8860, the latter being a big brother (no pun intended) to the former. They also work well. Do a search to see information on them.

It would be the email used to send those faxes used SSL. But I think sending them through a service like Gmail is not HIPAA compliant as the data is stored on their servers when it is sent. Small Business Server on the other hand has Exchange which is good for internal and external email. The faxes wouldn't need to pass through any external SMTP servers. It would just use your Exchange's SMTP server.

Do you have a price in mind?

How many pages per month/week?

DoctorWAW made a good suggestion. But I believe the 8860DN is harder to find now. Similar and newer models would be the brother MFC-8480dn (Wired networking, 250 Sheet Tray) and brother MFC-8890dw (Wireless+Wired, 250 Sheet Tray + 50 Sheet Multipurpose).


Multifunction scanners are not good for heavy use. For that I would recommend a Document Scanner Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 (no TWAIN driver) or Fujitsu fi-6130 (TWAIN Driver).

We have two Brother MFC's, an 8890dw and 7340 for day-to-day use. We used a Fujitsu fi-6130 to scan in paper charts initially, and now for the occasional large document. We have been pretty happy with all of them.

We have come a long way from the pricy ink of the ink jet days, but your toner costs will likely far outweigh the purchase price of the machine, so keep "cost of toner per page" in mind when you compare machines.

No comment.

Your silence speaks volumes.

I disagree with Bert

Everyone has their preferences. Ours are just right, the Brother camp, that is.

Please search the forum for Brother, there is a long discussion about it as to it's advantages and disadvantages.

Samsung is a relatively newer suggestion on the board. I do not know as much about them since I don't have one. Thus, I only presented other (better )options.

For whoever asked this question, how much printing/copying/faxing are you giong to do? this will help determine what you need. Unlike the big boys on here, I am a very small practice (wendell i am coming south to orland for a new location on tuesdays!).

I guess Im not sure how many pages I am printing a month, but I am a solo doc and want something under $1000.

We've eliminated wasting paper by print to PDFs. You should try that too. The software is called BullZip PDF Printer.

Also, try to give a rough estimate of how many pages per month. The max duty cycle of the Brother is 30000 pages or 60 Reams of Paper. Max Duty cycle should be double what you need. So unless you're printing more than 15,000 pages per month, it should hold up. HP and Canon have been good for me as well.

CutePDF also works. I use Cute since I heard of it before Bullzip PDF.

I disagree that Leslie can disagree with me.

I still have no comment except that I don't care about HIPAA.

Bert, you are sounding very politiciany.
Personally, I'm just wild about HIPPA, HIPPA's wild about me.

That is because HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which is policed by three retired deputy sheriffs in Lubbock, TX.

Now HIPPA stands for Health Is Politician's Political Agenda, which I definitely cannot support.

For the reception area we have a Brother MFC-8860 DN and have been happy with that. It does not have a high capacity scanner though (but we don't scan in old charts).

For my personal office I have a Lexmark Pinnacle Pro 901. Saves my lazy self from having to walk down the hall to make a copy or scan a document, plus the print ink (B&W) is only 1 cent a page.

As much as I hate/hated the wikis, there are certain ones that would be helpful. Seems like we go through this every three months or so.

Plus, the Wiki could just open and say:

www.brother.com

Thanks for all the recommendations!
Follow up question:
Do I need a machine that is TWAIN compatible?

You don't need one. But seems like people prefer the direct scan into Amazing Charts. If you want to scan directly into amazing charts, you need a scanner with a TWAIN driver. If you want to scan to PDF and then import afterwards, you don't need one.

Thanks...which leads me to:
Where can I find a TWAIN printer?

You probably mean a scanner -- TWAIN is the API for imaging devices communicating with computers.

If you need a medium to high volume (hundreds to thousands of pages a month) I previously used an Epson Workforce scanner which was reliable and fast, and has a TWAIN interface, so you can use the scanning commands within AC to scan into AC directly.

Just a footnote -- I gave up the Epson when I bought a Fujitsu SnapScan S1500 sheetfed scanner: very fast and durable, and scans directly to a PDF, plus you get a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Standard and an OCR application, so you can create searchable documents as you are scanning. It is not a TWAIN scanner, but takes just one extra step to import into AC.

IMHO, you can't go wrong with either one.

Ha, I didn't even notice he said TWAIN printer. Non-TWAIN scanner Scansnap 1500. If you want a TWAIN driver and a faster one, fujitsu fi-6130.

Dr Niko
It depends what you plan to use the machine for :
1. If you are going to ust the Multifunction Machine(MFC)like Samsung, Brother or Cannon for the purpose od scanning ,copying & printing then that is the machine you want to use. I am postive that the Samsung does PDF files. Using the MFC for large volume scanning is not a good idea because they are slow and will wear down you machine fast.Most of you MFC's atleast the Samsumg comes with built in software that you can scan via AC
2.You should buy a MFC machine that has a Ethernet 10/100BaseTX (RJ-45) port. You can use other machines and SHARE it across your network if it does not have a Ethernet 10/100BaseTX (RJ-45)
3. It is a good idea to buy a seperate SCANNER & there are a number of suggestions for that on this board.
Grenville

The MFCs also always seem to produce a substantially larger scanned file at the same resolution than a separate scanner. I have not ever figured this out.

I agree with Grenville on everything above. Most would vote for a fujitsu scanner. Which one, read the posts.

We have a Brother MFC 8890DW and a Fujitsu 6130 scanner. The flatbed feature of the Brother is nice to have for scanning ID cards and photo IDs at the same time, but the Brother's ADF sucks. We scan newborn discharge records and if these papers are bent, the ADF picks up the papers 3-4 sheets at a time and we'll have to rescan in smaller stacks. Also not good for sending a big fax of old papers. The fujitsu scanner is faster, quieter and has a better ADF. We're thinking about getting another one.

This Brother also takes a long time to warm up for both printing and copying - longer than our old non-digital Canon copy machine and HP laser printer. Also, papers are bent even with printing on 1 side. The print quality is very good though.

All in all, it was good for its price, but we might be moving on to having separate machines doing different purposes rather than all-in-one.

I hope Leslie misses this post given her 95 degree office, but I can't believe I am hearing a negative comment about a Brother.

In all seriousness, though, it sounds like you got a lemon, and I would call them, if it is in warranty, and have them exchange it. Except for the PDF issue, it is usually a very good machine.

I have also learned the hard way about TTFP (Time to first page). It has now become one of my major criteria. Our old Xerox, which was extremely expensive had a TTFP of around 43 seconds so I bought a Dell for up front which is 5 seconds. Our Xerox lease ran out, and the new one is about 8 seconds. The problem with bigger machines that do more is the "engine" has to kick in and it takes longer.

But, serene, what you describe is unacceptable, and I would be on the phone with someone.

Really? I guess I just accepted that maybe the ADF is just not very good, but I will give them a call. I figured the bent paper is normal since we have another (not all in one) brother printer that also bends the paper. I can live with bent paper though.

We might be spoiled b/c our old Canon copy machine took 1-2 seconds to warm up. (If only the ADF still works!) Now the brother takes probably 10 seconds at most.

We do not use the Brother MFC 8860DN (which is probably close to the same machine) for scanning, but it will take multiple pages for faxing without any problem. I would agree with Bert, call Brother.

They do have good support on the phone but sometimes they are not right on. They had me do an upgrade that caused problems and swapped out my machine 2 times. Each time I retraced the steps and wound up in the same place. Once I talked to advanced support they determined that the instructions were putting a foriegn driver for the ADF and would cause it to malfunction. This was different than what is going on with serene, but they are good for swapping out a defective machine easily.

I have a Brother 8890DW MFC and a Fujitsu ScanSnap. The Brother can feed a few pages and excels at flatbed (ID card scanning). But nothing can scan pages like the Fujitsu. The office staff has scanned over 40,000 pages with the Fujitsu, and its still going strong, 20 pages a minute.

The ADF is the biggest problem with any of the Brothers I have had. I also have not had the best experiences with the Brother Tech support. BUT, sorry Bert, I still think they are great machines for the price.

I have almost the same setup as John. Scansnaps as well as most Fujitusus are wonderful.

They are great machines for the PRICE. There is a new study out that says they are more efficient in 90 + degree weather.

Bert, you are correct. They even worked well during wind storms (from all the fans) and under water (sweat dripping off employees).

Bert, I heard that NASA uses Brother MFC's on the space station.

Yes, they do, because only tiff files are allowed in space.

BTW, One of the main reasons I went with Leslie's recommendation a few years ago with the Brother option is because of the wonderful "Free" program of Paperport which comes with most of the models, a probably all of the ones just mentioned. As my wife Nancy (our Doc here) says, "I Love Paperport!!!" (She also still says she Loves me which is good... And Bert she still Loves FAP as well; THANKS!)

We have cut our printing of paper docs down so dramatically the savings on things like Paper, Toner, Inks is truly "Amazing", worth the price of admission in and of itself. And like all good "E" based things on a network, they are instantly available to anyone in the office, with more than one person looking at the same doc at the same time even, right????

I now use the Version of PaperPort on my own laptop for all sorts of things including "E" payment of bills, and purchases, CC statements, and lots of "Screen Prints" which are great when fighting with the G&E company or your CC company to prove what you saw, what their website said, and when you actually did what you claim you did... "Here is the time and dated screen print from your website and exactly what it said or what I did... So now deal with me and fix the problem..." And PP converts things to PDF form so they are safe, stable, and practically universal. I've got mine and my son's USA Hockey Registrations in there which I can email to anyone who needs them... It's great!

Lastly and perhaps mighty importantly, when using the Brother with PP, the Brother can say like 500 pages of faxes internally so even if your server main network computer is down for awhile you don't miss anything, and those faxes ala PFD's never leave your office or network, it's all Intranet inside your own office, no "E-Mailing" of the faxes simply to convert and file them even needed.They are instantly sent over your network to the Pre-determed PP file of your choice for immediate access and renaming, filing in AC or some other Document Management System of your choice.... And it is really a document managment system in its own right.... As I just said above.... Make lots of folders as you see fit under the main PP Docs folder and have at it anyway you please....

It has changed our life around here in terms of Medical Docs and to some extent other Docs as well... I need to start making files that relate to my office side, QuickBooks better and start making my paper miraculously disappear as well as Nancy has on the Medical Side, that's for sure...

We Love PaperPort and FAP (File Assist Pro, Hint Hint Bert!!!).

Paul & Nancy

Ed is working on a completely new multi practitioner FAP. Even changing the name. Going to be pretty cool.