I’ll admit, I’m pretty frustrated right now lol. me and my doctor have been trying to submit a referral to a specialist but for the last several weeks, when i call them, they still haven’t gotten it yet. they told me it’s because they only have one fax machine so it refuses any incoming faxes if it’s in the middle of printing a different one.
my problem is, why haven’t we come up with a more modern and secure way of sending medical files?!?! am i crazy for thinking this is a super unprofessional and unnecessary barrier to care?
luckily I’m mobile enough to drive a physical copy to their location, but not everybody who needs to see this type of doctor can do that, nor should they have to.
Where I work, the fax was a way to ensure that information could be sent in multiple ways, if one way would fail. In the medical field (at least where I live) we must have systems with backup systems in a few layers. We have a nice digital medical chart system, and I still have to print out many things and put in a binder that no one ever reads. Because the internet could stop working, or electricity could fail. We even have routines for which types of pen and paper can be used if we need to write things by hand while electricity is gone.
Shit, they could just get a better fucking FAX machine that can put new incoming faxes into a queue. The last fax machine I used (like well over a decade ago) could at least do that.
no kidding! i have enough to deal with, without having to babysit a doctor’s office that won’t update their equipment.
You can even have multiple fax machines on the same phone number if you really need it.
Referrals are electronic for those running a modern EMR, like Epic. The systems exist, it’s up to both sides to implement them.
thank you, this is exactly the type of answers i was hoping for!
I have to fax docs a lot. Couple of years ago we started using stonefax so it’s like an email. I wish the faxing was the worst part - most take 1-3 calls to the doc to get them sent back.
Unfolding a Xerox copy faxed over a phone line wont infect your entire network.
Opening an email, tho…
Boy do I have bad news for you https://threatpost.com/def-con-2018-critical-bug-opens-millions-of-hp-officejet-printers-to-attack/134972/
Its not the fax over phone line that was compromised, its the internet connected printer. In fact, HP even has services where you email to your own printer in order to print.
Can you pick it up and deliver it to the new office in person?
HIPAA.
i understand HIPAA. i don’t understand why we are still using the technology we started using in the 60s. my question is why haven’t we found a better way since then?
You can’t even stop junk snail mail or end daylight savings time. Good luck.
it’s generally harder to fax to a wrong number, have that actually hit a fax machine, and have it print than to accidentally email the wrong person or something. There are things that could be implemented into certain systems to only send to certain addresses, etc., but that information also exists in multiple places that can be accessed as well. For a fax, the message exists on the sender’s side (physical if any, machine memory possibly), receiver’s side (same), and briefly on the wire. This is opposed to hard drive, cloud, etc. where it is always vulnerable.
The “modern” fax machine using telephone was invented in 1964 by Xerox, but technically the fax machine goes back to 1843. Bain patented the electric printing telegraph, which used pendulums and electric signals to scan images and send them over telegraph wires.
Plenty of people still use landlines. That tech is much older than faxes. Internal combustion engines have been around for about as long. There have been improvements, of course, but the basic idea of spark plugs igniting fuel, which pushes down a piston is quite old.
Like many things the 1960s tech is “good enough” and the government hasn’t mandated a specific standard.
For non freedoomers:
HIPPA = Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
