The Challenge 

Barnes Healthcare Services was experiencing a crisis of confidence in its Web-based fax service because it was unreliable. Because the home healthcare industry remains largely fax-based, this was a significant issue BHS needed to address. 

“The Web-based fax service we were using wasn’t reliable,” said Ben McLendon, Director, Information Technology at BHS. “We experienced issues, including the system being down frequently, and delayed delivery of faxes to our customers. The end result was a trust issue where customers began to doubt that we could communicate with them efficiently. We had to find a way to restore customer confidence and demonstrate that the faxes critical to their work and business would be delivered rapidly and without mistakes.”  

Since new business communications at BHS are often delivered through a faxing service, it was also imperative to find a fax solution that allowed BHS to effectively interact with referral sources. “We receive some electronic orders but the industry is still predominantly fax-based,” said McLendon. “And since more than half of the faxed pages we receive come from referral sources, we needed a solution that addressed this important aspect of our daily business. The requirement for signed documents means a fax must also be sent for many prescriptions. If you have a patient that needs oxygen, that’s actually considered a drug and we have to have a signed prescription for that.”  

The Solution 

BHS found Bisom’s Hybrid Cloud Fax solution was able to ensure uninterruptible fax connectivity and business continuity. “We like that Biscom’s hosted fax service is a hybrid solution where there is a single, identical user interface whether documents are processed on our in-house fax servers or via Biscom’s cloud fax servers. This gives us extra peace of mind regarding security, which is vital in a HIPAA environment.” 

The Benefits 

Adding Notes to Achieve HIPAA Compliance 

The ability to add notes to faxes helps BHS comply with HIPAA requirements. “Our users’ workflow requirements include a need to be able to access and manage comments on inbound faxes,” says McLendon. “To help achieve HIPAA compliance, our staff must be able to compose comments on these fax documents. The comments feature is incredibly important to us.” 

Documenting Fax History 

Having a comprehensive record of all faxes allows BHS to easily ensure that all faxes were sent and received as expected through Biscom’s advanced reporting tools. “In many cases, our employees fax clinical paperwork to physicians which require a signature,” McLendon said. “Biscom gives BHS a comprehensive ability to see and manage our fax history. Other systems we tried weren’t able to handle this as well as Biscom does.” 

Shared Phonebook Functionality Saves Time 

Using the “shared phonebook” functionality has allowed the BHS team to make better use of their time now that they can avoid designing and managing separate address lists. McLendon notes, “Biscom’s Shared Phonebook is better than that of other fax service systems. With many of the outbound faxes our employees are sending, the destination address doesn’t change. Not having to maintain separate phonebooks is a tremendous time-saver for BHS.” 

The Results 

According to Ben McLendon, “from a feature and functionality standpoint, Biscom is the best we’ve come across. We are now able to communicate with our customers without problems, and have re-earned their trust.” 

 

Barnes Healthcare Services
company

Barnes Healthcare Services

INDUSTRY 

Medical Equipment

HEADQUARTERS

Valdosta, GA

website
challenges
  • Unreliable Web-based fax service
  • Delayed fax delivery
  • Lost customer confidence
solution

Biscom Hybrid Fax Platform

results
  • Non-stop business continuity, with the same user interface and no additional hardware or software investment.
  • Ability to access and manage comments on inbound faxes in order to achieve HIPAA compliance.
  • Comprehensive ability to see and manage fax history through advanced tracking, routing, and reporting tools.

quote

“We had to find a way to restore customer confidence and demonstrate that the faxes critical to their work and business would be delivered rapidly and without mistakes.”

Ben McLendon

Director of IT

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