National Physician Services and ETHERFAX Digitize Workflows for Starling Physicians
National Physician Services (NPS) is a healthcare IT services company dedicated to delivering end-to-end solutions for medical providers. NPS helps organizations improve the delivery of protected health information (PHI) through information technology and managed support.
National Physician Services has worked with Starling Physicians, a leading multispecialty group of medical providers, since their inception in 2016 and recently supported their initiatives to digitize workflows. As Starling Physicians provides coordinated healthcare across 27 specialties including cardiology, nephrology, physical therapy, and pediatric and adolescent medicine, having easy access to clinical information is critical to ensure a seamless flow of care between providers.
Challenge
With 32 office locations exchanging massive amounts of patient data every day, Starling’s network of physicians required a communications and messaging platform that was fast, scalable, and highly available. Since fax remains the most trusted method of document delivery today, Starling Physicians used traditional fax machines in every office to exchange patient information with outside parties, and occasionally, internally.
However, with high volumes of faxes being sent and received each month, legacy fax machines proved inefficient and costly. Thousands of electronic health records (EHRs), medical requests, scans, and reports were printed, signed, faxed, and then shredded to protect patient privacy – one at a time. This was an inefficient and wasteful process. One of Starling’s Pediatrics offices, for example, transmitted about 10,000 pages per month. Starling needed a better way to send and receive these health-critical documents while safeguarding the sensitive data they contained.
In addition to needing an eco-friendly and economical alternative, Starling required a solution that was digital and direct. Eliminating the need for costly network fax systems would allow Starling to deliver PHI and high-resolution documents faster and more securely. National Physician Services needed to find a digital fax service provider for Starling Physicians that offered HIPAA compliance, superior customer service, delivery confirmations, and the quick and easy porting of existing fax numbers.
Solution
After evaluating several fax providers including Concord and RightFax, National Physicians Services selected ETHERFAX. Starting May 2019, Starling Physicians replaced 20 legacy fax machines with new Lexmark devices that leverage the ETHERFAX hybrid cloud fax network. By summer 2020, etherFAX and Lexmark will be deployed at all 32 office locations.
Leveraging the ETHERFAX Secure Exchange Network (SEN), medical providers can now securely send and receive documents with ultra-fast transmission speeds, guaranteed delivery, near-diagnostic image quality, and end-to-end encryption. ETHERFAX SEN also provides HIPAA, PCI DSS, and SOC 2 compliance.
As Starling Physicians simply cannot afford any downtime or busy signals, ETHERFAX SEN features built-in redundancy and eliminates the need for duplicate phone lines, fax boards, and servers.
“With ETHERFAX, we no longer experience busy signals,” said Tiffany Jaworski, Practice Manager at Vernon Pediatrics for Starling Physicians. “Even if an office’s network is offline, ETHERFAX will hold faxes in queue until we are back online.”
Results
Starling Physicians has experienced a significant cost savings of 70-80% per month due to ETHERFAX’s flat-rate service model. Prior to implementing ETHERFAX and using a pay-per-use model, one Starling office spent a whopping $260/month on their fax service, paper, toner, and costly phone lines. Now, Starling spends just $34.95/month on the ETHERFAX service and low overhead for paper and toner (which are not often used due to the electronic workflow that Mrs. Jaworski designed).
“Integrating ETHERFAX and training our staff and physicians was a simple and easy process,” said Jaworski. “Each office was ready to adopt ETHERFAX for production in as little as a few days.”
Together with National Physician Services, ETHERFAX has enabled Starling Physicians to improve uptime, streamline business processes, and securely transfer patient data.
“After working with healthcare customers for over 15 years, this is the first initiative I have seen where there is excitement around the solution,” commented Lee Seidman, Director of Technical Services at National Physician Services. “In my opinion, ETHERFAX is by far the best electronic faxing medium on Earth – it is economical, sophisticated, reliable, efficient, and a whole lot of sensible.”
With ETHERFAX, we no longer experience busy signals. Even if an office’s network is offline, ETHERFAX will hold faxes in queue until we are back online.
Tiffany Jaworski
Practice Manager, Vernon Pediatrics for Starling Physicians
After working with healthcare customers for over 15 years, this is the first initiative I have seen where there is excitement around the solution. In my opinion, ETHERFAX is by far the best electronic faxing medium on Earth – it is economical, sophisticated, reliable, efficient, and a whole lot of sensible.
Lee Seidman
Director of Technical Services, National Physician Services
Starling Physicians has experienced a significant cost savings of 70-80% per month due to ETHERFAX’s flat-rate service model.
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