The Datamax Thinking Blog

How many times have you searched the practice from top to bottom, looking for patient records, wasting precious time?

When you work in the medical field and you're helping patients, it's easy to forget that your medical practice is also a business. Your back-office processes are just as important as what you're doing on the front-line. If you struggle with paperwork filling everyone's desks, it's time to look into the four key benefits of document management software.

If your practice is trying to decide whether to use an EMR or EHR system, it's important to know about these differences and to understand how an EHR system can be more beneficial to your practice.

As a healthcare provider – whether you work at a doctor's office, medical/critical care clinic, hospital, or any other type of care facility – you have to deal with mountains of paperwork, from insurance forms to patient records. You also know the value of technology platforms such as electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (EHR). Both are valuable tools in managing patient information. However, although many staff members use the terms interchangeably, they're not the same thing. Here are the differences between the two and what you need to know about each technology.

Your staff works hard every day to keep patients happy and healthy. Get them a EHR system capable of making the most out of their time and efforts every day, and streamline your medical record keeping at the same time.

You have countless options for electronic health record (EHR) systems, and every vendor wants to claim that they have the best solution for your needs. This technology moves you away from endless paper files and keeps patients' health information in digital form. Authorized medical professionals have an easier time accessing this information quickly rather than waiting for your office to mail or fax documents. When you evaluate EHR systems, keep an eye out for these seven features.

No combination of office equipment and document management software is going to win you cases. However, they can team up to help you successfully craft your argument and avoid making mistakes that can lose you cases.

Every document counts when it comes to business, and in legal proceedings, there are a lot of documents. The last thing an attorney wants to deal with is misplacing a critical one.

I've written about how important document management is to everyone's practice, so I won't repeat myself, but it's clear that too many law firms still rely on paper files. 

Document management and workflow can keep you efficient in the six stages of civil litigation. The ability to share your files electronically and print and copy documents using multifunction copiers makes collaboration much easier.

We’ve come up with a few tips to help you through the process of what to look for (and to help you make sure you get the most bang for your buck).

In the legal industry, the standards in records management are rigid. A firm must protect their clients’ interests, while also adhering to federal, state, and local regulations, plus court requirements. And if you fail to comply, it can result in loss of client confidence, malpractice suits, stiff penalties, and/or hefty fines.

So, it’s easy to see why having the right technology to serve your firm is so important – there shouldn’t be question or concern about whether or not your firm fall short in the protection of your clients’ interests and information or meet those rigid standards.

Stop wrestling a manual accounts payable process – automate it and steal some of your valuable time back.

When it comes to Accounts Payable (AP), most organizations receive invoices from a number of digital channels (mail, fax, email, electronic data interchange - EDI, etc.), but the overwhelming majority of them are paper documents.

Though invoices may be received in various forms, a typical accounts payable process usually remains the same, following a series of steps: capture the invoice, manually key in the data, code the invoice against purchase orders or general ledger (GL) accounts, route for approval, and issue payments.

Poor document processes impact your firm by creating security and compliance risk, unrecovered billable costs, and unnecessary inefficiencies.

The majority of law firms typically process thousands of paper documents every year. Documents that are anything from pleadings, motions, and evidence files to contracts, leases, wills, and trusts – it’s a lot of paper.

The majority of those paper documents and that information are handled through manual processes – inefficient manual processes.

There are a few reasons why converting documents to a PDF format (especially in the legal field) is a good, and often the best, option.

In the legal industry, in order for a document to be admissible in court it must be in a format that cannot be altered without leaving an electronic trail.

There are multiple options when it comes to formatting a file that is unalterable (TIFF, JPEG, or GIF), but they don’t leave an electronic trail. You can scan and save print documents to these formats and save born digital documents to these formats as well. However there is one option that is the most economical and the most practical – PDF.

So, as you stand at the copier making five versions of the same document so everyone who needs a copy can have one, here are some arguments for you to use to digitize and automate your law firm.

Most of us have been to some sort of live event – concert, play, a game, or a race – we don’t often think about it but we know that a ton of preparation and behind the scenes work went into making that event run smoothly.

That’s the importance of your job as an office manager – keeping the firm operational and running smoothly. When you’re sorting through invoices, ensuring lawyers have all the information they need, and dealing with all the details and tasks in between, having to deal with manual processes is the last thing you need.

Are you ready for a simple way to integrate hard-copy legal documents into a document management system (i.e. like Worldox DMS, of course)?

You can extend the value of your multifunction copier to your business by using it to remove paper from your office. Being able to access digital versions of case matters is a big deal in the legal industry – it allows you to spend more time serving clients and less time shuffling papers.

And, as an added bonus: No more hauling heavy stacks of paper around the office – now you can save that workout for the gym!

When writing these posts, I usually make it a point not to focus on a specific product. However, today is an exception.