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Medical Document Scanning: Benefits of a Paperless Practice
Wed Jun 29, 2022 | Admin
Your patient’s records contain highly sensitive information that must be handled with care. Dealing with paper records is clumsy and messy—which is why EHRs (electronic health record) and EMRs (electronic medical record) are the new standard.
Learn more about the benefits of scanning your patients important files and medical records; including how it will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and increase security at your practice.
In previous posts, we have discussed Document Management Solutions in industries such as Education and Law. Using the dental industry as an example, below is a video that covers the benefits of medical Document Scanning Services.
Why Go Paperless? Patient charts and other documents are among the most important parts of a dental practice, making it important to ensure you’re using the most efficient system possible for managing them.
As technology advances it’s becoming more common to scan dental records and adopt an electronic system for storing files, as it offers a range of advantages including:
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Lower Cost
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Greater efficiency and productivity
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Safeguards for physical and malicious threats
Cost BenefitsReduce overall costs. Going paperless helps to reduce or altogether eliminate many of the indirect costs that come with hard-copy dental records.
Save Your Valuable Real Estate By scanning medical records and adopting a paperless practice you’re able to clear out all the space previously used for hard copies—as a result opening up new space for more productive purposes like extra patient chairs.
Cut Back on Labor Costs Another advantage of digital files is the time they save, and as the saying goes, time is money.
By scanning patient charts, time previously spent looking for files can be used for more productive purposes instead.
Minimize Supply Costs There are a range of everyday supply costs that a paperless dental practice can eliminate or reduce, including:
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Stationary
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Printer ink
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Office supplies (staples, bindings, etc.)
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File cabinets & other office furniture
Productivity BenefitsImprove productivity and efficiency. Paperless dental practices streamline many of the time-consuming tasks that come with hard-copies such as filing patient charts and tracking down ones that are misfiled or lost.
Fast Access to Files Employees searching for files for 15 minutes a day may seem insignificant, but that time—and labor costs that go with it—will begin to add up.
With electronic document management solutions though users are able to search for dental records by keyword and when using files they don’t need to remove or replace them from their storage place—in turn helping to improve time bottlenecks and allowing multiple people to use a chart at the same time.
Never Misplace Records Losing track of patient charts can lead to issues ranging from time wasted to potential legal risks.
With electronic files on the other hand patient records can be accessed without needing to remove them from their location—eliminating the chance for it to be misfiled or misplaced.
Security BenefitsIncrease security. Using electronic dental records provides dual benefits with protections from both environmental damage as well as theft and misuse.
Simple Data Backup With electronic records it’s easy to backup data to an offsite location.
When you’re able to always have a secure second copy for a fallback, it creates an insurance policy against damage like fire or flood.
System Security Features
Document Management Solutions manage electronic medical records implement multiple safeguards to protect files from potential theft and misuse.
For example, tiered access controls can limit access to sensitive information internally while an encryption system can protect from external threats.
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Scanning Services
Take Your Practice Paperless
Join other medical practices both large and small who we’ve helped scan patient charts and adopt a paperless management system. To go paperless, fill out our form or give us a call at (716) 852-2203 or toll-free at (800) 859-2203 for a free no-obligation quote.
How does your office manage important and confidential document and files? Do you have a system in place or do you still prefer the traditional paper technique? Perhaps a hybrid of both? Feel free to share your experiences, we love hearing about different office styles.