Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Going Paperless with Everything

We have recently finished scanning our 10,000+ old paper charts and now have these powerful ScanSnap scanners collecting dust. So, we'd like to use them to scan everything else paper that we are currently filing such as Utility bills, Insurance Carrier mail, Daily Reports, etc.

Does anybody have suggestions for good software to help us scan everything and "file" electronically?

I've thought about getting Adobe Reader to password-protect files with sensitive information, if any, and then manually filing to a Network drive. Then there is cloud solutions. But I am looking for something to help keep things organized. What are your thoughts, how do you file your non-medical documents?

Thanks.

You could just store them in folders. Scansnap also comes with the Scansnap Organizer. If you already have server-client, files can be protected by authentication. Server can be encrypted with Bitlocker encryption.

A lot of people offer paperless billing nowadays. You can pay all the bills online and just shred/toss them when they come or request to stop receiving them. Print to PDF to avoid scanning things in the first place.

The staff has never liked Scansnap Organizer, and neither have I. It also came with another software, Rack2Filer, which I haven't heard much about but it looks like outdated software.

We could request to go paperless for all our bills but we still have a lot of other documents we still want to start scanning.

I already backup the server so I could just add the folders to the backup set if we scanned everything to the server computer. Would you recommend that over getting an external HD and plugging it into the router and saving docs there?

Seems like the easiest thing to do. Documents don't take up much space. Might as well use the server since it's already setup.

The external hd into the router. That's called a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. Basically the same thing as a file server. QNAP and Synology are pretty popular.

Adam, thanks for your suggestion but their service appears to be a reporting service. I am looking for more of a workflow idea to scan our office's documents.

Sandeep, I meant plugging in the ext HD via the USB port on our router as opposed to a NAS. I've looked into it though and decided on the Qnap Ts-231 so that I can setup RAID and have a viable backup as we scan files to it. I dont trust the router's USB port for large volumes and think NAS will be faster.
Do you know if the QSYNC service is essentially a cloud backup of everything?
Aside from being in RAID (not sure which one yet), it is nice to know that the files are being backed up elsewhere.

Josue,

We scanned all of our old paper charts and put them on a HD located on our server. The files were named by AC chart number then the patients name. We placed a link on all of the desktops to be able to access the old charts if needed. This helped keep our database from growing too large to quick

Marty, I wish we had thought of that before we scanned all of our charts into AC.

We are going to use a NAS and just organize everything using appropriately named folders.

Hi Marty,

What program did you use for this?

We use PaperPort to scan.

Thanks.

Gene

Gene,

Our scanner scans files into a PDF. From there it was just drop and drag.

Hi Marty,

"Drop and drag" into what?

Thanks

Gene

Gene,

We scanned all of our charts into one folder on the server. Then using windows explorer, just renamed the files and dragged them into the appropriate folder on our server. If you need more info, feel free to PM me. Does that answer your question?

Hi Marty,

Makes perfect sense!

About 8 years ago we were in a similar situation, I did not want to scan outside records etc into AC. Partly concern about speed and size of II, partly concern about transferring data if we ever switched from AC.

We used PaperPort, which has done pretty well.

I never thought of your simple approach, to just create the folders ourselves!

Thanks.

Gene

Gene,

I was concerned about the size of our database getting too big. This seemed to be the simplest solution.

Any suggestions or applications that will allow me to fax my signed note to the referring provider when I select print?

At this point, I am only looking to eliminate my printing and OUTBOUND faxing of these notes.

Eventually, I plan/hope to have have ALL incoming and outgoing faxes come in through some sort of portal or server, but unsure how yet.

Dino,

If you sign up for Updox you can do this from the Print menu. You would select a [virtual] Updox printer, which would instantly prepare your note to be faxed/emailed securely to the referring Doc.

I'm not sure what a fax server is or if Updox is exactly that, but I do know that it can manage your incoming/outgoing faxes entirely without ever printing anything. We've been using it for a few years and love it.

Thanks Josue

Can I just use Updox to send outbound Office notes?

I plan to eventually have incoming faxes come through something like Updox but I don't feel the staff is ready for that step yet.

Yes you can.

We have one MA that finds Updox more efficient, so she alone manages all of our incoming faxes using it. It helps with consistency because there's less hands in the pot and because the rest of the staff finds Updox more difficult than using a fax machine/scanner combo to manage faxes.

I bought a ScanSnap long ago but discovered it wasn't very TWAIN compatible. I'd be curious to know if it can be used with AC to scan into to imported items on the fly. I use the old IBM Documate 152 which is TWAIN and WIA compatible. The 150 is single sided but the 152 is full duplex (both sides) and works beautifully with AC, comes bundled with PaperPort which is what we use to be as paperless as possible. You can find them on Ebay and I just found one for $78 there which is such a bargain I ordered one as a spare.They have one more if you hurry: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261870861482

The main feature of the ScanSnap is its proprietary driver which offers a lot more than TWAIN. It can auto-straighten, detect post-its, staples, auto-rotate, color, etc. I find dragging and dropping into Amazing Charts is quite a bit faster than importing via the TWAIN interface in AC. You can setup the scansnap to just scan into a folder as a pdf with no popup. This is also simpler for the user since the same process can be used to import any type of file including faxes, pictures, videos, etc.

How?

Here is the step-by-step guide.

https://www.ltmedical.net/amazing-charts/fujitsu-scansnap-scan-directly-to-a-folder/