North Georgia Pediatric Therapies Digitizes Workflows and Reduces Costs with ETHERFAX
North Georgia Pediatric Therapies (NGPT) is a multidisciplinary pediatric therapy clinic offering Occupational, Physical, and Speech Therapy services to children and youth with a developmental delay, sports injury, orthopedic impairment, or neurological impairment.
NGPT works with many commercial insurance carriers including Cigna, United Healthcare, and Aetna as well as Georgia Medicaid to provide services to patients and families at affordable costs.
Challenge
In order to provide patients with high-quality care, NGPT must be able to exchange patient data and insurance information fast and securely. Before NGPT’s clinicians can provide services to a patient, a prescription must be faxed over from the patient’s pediatrician. Then, the clinicians will evaluate the patient, develop a healthcare plan, and fax that plan over to the pediatrician. Once the healthcare plan is approved, it must be faxed to the patient’s insurance provider for a prior authorization. Once clinicians receive the prior authorization and start working with a patient, daily progress notes are faxed to the pediatrician.
Needless to say, fax is crucial for NGPT to ensure a seamless flow of care. Unfortunately, NGPT often experienced delays and failed faxes while using a fax service hampered by phone lines. Their antiquated fax service was not only inefficient, it was also expensive. With over a hundred faxes being transmitted every day, NGPT frequently exceeded the fax service’s 1,200 monthly page limit and was charged extra for each fax sent.
“We rely on fax to receive the authorizations needed for payments. If prior authorizations take too long, we can potentially lose patients,” said Dr. Shae Minnick, PT, DPT, and Owner of North Georgia Pediatric Therapies. “When our faxes were not being sent, we had no other option than to mail our care plans to pediatricians and insurance providers.”
Solution
After evaluating several solutions, NGPT selected ETHERFAX in April 2022. ETHERFAX was the ideal choice for NGPT as it enabled clinicians to easily share documents with other EMRs and receive unlimited pages via email at a low cost.
NGPT utilizes ETHERFAX’s integration with Lexmark to securely send documents with ultra-fast transmission speeds and guaranteed delivery. While traditional fax transmissions such as VOIP are hampered by limitations associated with PSTN and telephony infrastructure at analog modem speeds, ETHERFAX offers a more effective approach to secure document delivery via fax. By leveraging the cloud and delivering all faxes via HTTPS, outdated fax boards, media gateways, the complex telephony stack, and busy signals are eliminated.
Results
Since ETHERFAX is a digital solution, faxing is now a paperless process. As clinicians no longer have to purchase on paper and toner, more money can be put towards rehabilitation and physical therapy services for patients. Best of all, prescriptions, healthcare plans, and prior authorizations are sent and received within seconds, enabling clinicians to evaluate and treat patients faster.
“ETHERFAX saved our business,” said Dr. Shae. “Now, we never miss a fax. ETHERFAX has streamlined and digitized processes so that we can focus our attention on developing our programs and improving children’s quality of life.”
ETHERFAX saved our business. Now, we never miss a fax. ETHERFAX has streamlined and digitized processes so that we can focus our attention on developing our programs and improving children’s quality of life.
Dr. Shae Minnick
PT, DPT, and Owner, North Georgia Pediatric Therapies
Find out more about what we do
Ready to get started?
From optimizing communication within a healthcare network to streamlining document exchange in a corporate environment or enhancing compliance with regulatory standards, ETHERFAX offers a versatile solution that can address diverse business needs and deliver tangible benefits. View our case studies to learn how.