Digitizing Paper Forms

Forms are incredibly useful tools in any market. Healthcare is no exception. It could even be considered an outlier because data collection is not just useful, it’s an absolute necessity. Whether its intake forms that patients fill out to give their providers important context on their visit, or internal documents that a patient never sees but are still critical to the operation, forms are everywhere. With them being such a major piece of the puzzle, it’s crucial that a medical practice’s forms are safe, secure, and built to succeed.

Ever since the internet exploded onto the scene in the late 90s, people all around the world have been doing everything they can to keep up. Just as soon as one great advancement pops up, newer and fresher tech comes in to replace it. The digital world is fast paced. While it ultimately exists to make life easier, it’s no secret that an organization needs to be properly equipped to make full use of this newfound convenience.

Paper Forms Are Everywhere 

Forms are one of the biggest spots where the healthcare world is not taking advantage of the many benefits that come with digitization. It’s easy to understand why. The systems that are already in place work. They’ve done their job for years without fuss, and operations have gone along well enough. 

Transitioning to a digital form landscape can seem like a scary and unnecessary leap when there are no glaring warning signs. However, with the proper solution, this transition can be seamless and deliver real and lasting benefits to your organization. 

Reduce Physical Safeguard Burdens

The most visible benefit to your team is reduced HIPAA compliance obligations. Digitizing your paper forms does not eliminate HIPAA regulations, but it shifts the burden away from clunky and outdated physical systems.

Physical safeguards are a serious part of HIPAA’s requirements. For small organizations where the practitioner runs the whole show, this can be much simpler. A simple filing cabinet with a lock can suffice. However, standards and policies still need to be implemented regarding access control and handling. On top of that, there’s another host of new obligations that arise for when it’s time to dispose of PHI. This on its own is complex enough that professional services exist to assist organizations who are looking to do it right.

Complexity Increases As Organizations Scale

All that is required even if it’s just one practitioner who cares for a handful of patients. Now imagine what happens when operations expand to an organization with hundreds of employees and thousands of patients. It can be especially difficult because it’s not as simple as restricting access to PHI to employees. Not everyone who works for an organization is qualified to see PHI under HIPAA’s minimum necessary access standard. Proper training needs to exist, verifiable access restrictions must be put in place, and even physical barriers to prevent unauthorized viewing must be implemented. To further complicate matters, all these procedures and policies must be carefully documented and regularly reviewed by the entire staff.

Simplifying Your Systems Makes Compliance Easier To Handle

The more efficient solution is to offload these obligations to a digital form solution that you know is secure and safe. Access control can be simplified to a password protected account that is unique to every agent that is authorized to view PHI. Audit log documentation should be easy to access whenever necessary. Destruction can be done with a click of a button rather than navigating complex requirements or hiring a professional service. Digitizing paper forms doesn’t get an organization off the hook for HIPAA, but it makes it a lot simpler to navigate.

Outside of the compliance considerations that come with physical PHI, dealing with it is simply slower. Sure, paper has existed and done its job for thousands of years, but that job can be done even better by making the switch to digital form collection. For the largest organizations where many hands are involved, it’s easy to understand that digital workflows are faster and more efficient. However, even a small solo practice can see real, tangible benefits. Consider the following examples:

Example A: Paper Forms at a Small Mental Health Practice

A new patient comes into a mental health practice. It’s a small office operated by just the practitioner and an office manager. They check in and are handed their intake packet. That alone takes 15 minutes to complete. Then, that information is brought back to the practitioner where it must not only be read over and understood but also entered in the digital system. Everything is slower and it has effects on all the parties involved.

The patient wants to be seen quickly, and it can be frustrating to have to wait another 15 minutes for the doctor to review and enter your information. The office manager has to manage all the paper documents. Meanwhile, the practitioner is losing valuable time that could be used to see more patients.

Example B: The Same Practice With Digitized Forms

A new patient has scheduled online at a mental health practice. They are directed to fill out their forms online before the appointment. It takes some time to fill out all the necessary information, but they get to do it in the comfort of their own home and not have to worry about rushing to get it done once they get to the office. The practice is notified as soon as the information is submitted, and the information can be easily exported and transferred to the digital system that’s in use.

Rather than waiting until the paper forms are filled out and submitted, the practitioner can now start to get oriented with the patient info immediately. Instead of waiting 25 minutes after walking in, the patient can now be seen in 10. Not only is the patient happier, but the office manager’s life is easier because everything is stored digitally, and the practitioner has freed up 15 minutes in their schedule. This doesn’t seem like a lot, but the math adds up quickly. If this office was fully booked with 10 patients in a day for 30 minute appointments, saving 15 minutes on each of those frees up another 150 minutes. In other words, that’s space to see 5 more patients. Just by switching to digital forms and saving a seemingly small amount of time, this practitioner has boosted their capacity by 50%.

It seems simple. Not only is compliance a pain point for practice’s that are still using paper forms, but slow workflows have serious consequences that can mean providers are losing out on thousands of dollars throughout the year. So, what’s the hold up?

Switching to digital forms needs to be simple, flexible, and require minimal staff training. Without these three important qualifications, making the transition can be too costly upfront for it to be worth it to medical practices. Though the benefits would eventually outweigh the costs over time, it can be difficult for providers and practice managers to justify if the results aren’t quick.

Simple

What we mean by simple is that the system itself shouldn’t be convoluted and over-engineered. Nor should it be difficult to implement. If there’s confusing controls or an unclear interface, it can take hours to figure it all out and finally build the form you need. Plus, if there’s any coding involved, it’s immediately disqualified. Practitioners and office staff shouldn’t need a computer engineering degree to get the forms they want.

Flexible

Digitizing paper forms is no small feat. Whether it’s a 10-page patient intake form or internal documentation that a patient will never see, it’s important that a form builder can accommodate that. The best solutions allow practices to have their forms exactly as they are, and that’s where most form builders fall short. They have all the necessary elements and fields, but the limitations of the software mean it looks wildly different from your existing solutions. A truly flexible solution allows organizations to build the forms they already know and love, not have to adapt to some rigid template.

Minimal Staff Training

Having forms that are built to look like what your staff already knows and uses certainly minimizes training, but this requirement goes further. The system itself should be intuitive. It’s nice to be able to easily build beautiful forms, but your staff will interact with that aspect very little if at all. Instead, their time will be spent in the dashboard viewing submissions as they come in. If a solution is difficult to navigate, it takes time, effort, and energy to learn that medical practices just can’t afford to spare.

Once the forms are built, they are available in two delivery options. For those that want to integrate their new designs on their website, there is copy and paste embed code that can be easily transferred to any web builder. For those who just need the forms, they are instantly available on a web link that can be accessed from any device. As submissions come in, an email is sent to anyone who is set up to receive notifications that allows users to login to their secure account to view the information.

Compliance Made Easy

The whole thing is packaged into one easy-to-navigate dashboard that requires minimal setup. On top of that, the system itself is fully HIPAA compliant and designed to support compliance for end users as well. Admin controls allow top level users to manage who can access information to ensure that your staff sees only what they need to, activity is logged and monitored to ensure that an audit trail is always available, and a signed business associate agreement (BAA) is included with every account.