Document Scanning Blog

Making the switch to a document scanning system is a commitment that is worth the effort in the practice of law.  Digital technology is becoming the norm in most businesses practices, and to resist moving forward can only impair the way your company functions. Paper files are becoming a way of the past and studies have established that using them wastes productive company time and resources. There are many risks associated with paper systems that digital files reduce or eliminate.

Having a paperless office offers a business many advantages. Implementing electronic document scanning technology to your business, no matter how small or large is easy, convenient and it will improve the management of your business files. By reducing clutter and increasing space, electronic files can organize your business more efficiently. 

When a business is able to respond to customer demand quickly, clients are satisfied and this can significantly increase the productivity of the company and provide a business with a competitive edge in their industry. Prices are affordable, and the return on your investment is well worth the initial cost. For medical offices, law offices, banks, universities, or small businesses, the value of this technology is unsurpassable in a competitive market.

               

 

Cost Saving

 

         ·Electronic file cabinets reduce the amount of space required that was needed to store paper files

 

         ·Reduces number of employees needed to manage paper files

 

Time Management

 

         ·Files that took days to locate can be accessed quickly by a computer leading to more production during work hours

         

 

Neatness/Organization

        

         ·A clutter free environment is easier to manage and has physiological benefits to employees that are exposed to it

 

Secure Records

 

         ·Electronic documents are secure and less likely to be accessed by unauthorized personnel since they are often encrypted with security codes

 

Disaster Recovery

 

         ·Paper records are easily destroyed over time, by water damage, fire, etc. Electronic records have longevity, however they must be backed up regularly and stored in a safe environment

 

Easily Transportable and Accessible

 

         ·Electronic documents can be transported and accessed by a laptop computer or a portable electronic pad

 

         ·Employees are able to share important documents with various team members in the company regardless of location

 

Environmentally Friendly

    

         ·Using less paper products saves trees and produces less trash

 

A company that establishes a paperless office can operate with more efficiency and professionalism than an office that is drowning in paper files. Electronic document scanning files are quickly becoming the logical way for businesses to operate. Many companies are taking the leap and moving forward with the conversion.

If you walk through the aisles of a computer store, or look at all the document management software available online, it would appear that the transition to a paperless office is easy, but do-it-yourself document management isn’t for everyone.   Most small to medium sized businesses need more than a software program or an online document management account; they need a document management “solution”. 

 

What is the difference between document scanning software and a document management solution?

 

More often than not, a professional document management system relies is web based.  This allows employees to access their office files without physically going into the office.  Much more secure than a paper document file or network based storage, an online document management system requires passwords to access files.  Each employee has “clearance” to access certain file types, and their security level may also determine whether they can edit or add to a file. 

 

The larger the company and the more people who “touch” a given document, the more complex a document management system becomes.  The actual scanning of paper documents is just the first step along the way to a paperless office.  It is what happens afterward, and how well the system is managed, that will determine its success. 

 

Working with a professional Document scanning company will give your business certain advantages over the do-it-yourself methods:

 

·         Reduce employee “downtime” by taking the scanning project off of their hands

·         Securely scan and archive paper documents for later retrieval without interrupting daily business activities

·         Install and customize a document management system, using a variety of tools, and ensure a compliance with federal and state privacy laws

·         Set up the database and train employees on how to use it

 

Now that document management systems have reached critical mass in many industries, businesses are looking at all of their options for a digital office.  While it is certainly possible to manage the process internally, it may be a lot more cost-effective to work with a team of document management professionals.

Up until recently the primary focus of document scanning and online document management has been to get medical practices and law offices into the 21^st century.  This was immediately followed by the financial and insurance industries.  Now that so many businesses are managing everything digitally, other companies may find it easier to switch to a paperless office.

 

As the American labor force becomes more accustomed to electronic documents, the use of paper in an office seems a lot more cumbersome.  Gone are the days when there was a line at the copy machine and a stack of manila folders on every worker’s desk.  Without even trying, today’s worker has gradually changed the way they manage paper documents in an office environment.

 

It’s hard to say when it happened, but at some point it become redundant to keep a file of paperwork for each client, when there was already an electronic file in existence.  It probably happened around the same time that people started “trusting computers” and realizing that their documents wouldn’t be lost in a computer crash.  IT professionals have become very adept at maintaining back-up files and ensuring the safety of network drives.  In most modern offices, client documents and important files are saved to a network drive instead of existing solely on a workers computer.  As a result, the average worker feels a lot more confident maintaining electronic document scanning without the requisite paper file. 

 

This shift has impacted various industries in different ways, but there are very few businesses that still operate in a paper-only model.  In the interest of efficiency, it appears that the American business owner is ready to follow the example of medical and legal office and embrace electronic document management solutions. 

 

Getting started with a document management solution for your office may require the help of a document scanning company.  These digital imaging professionals are the most effective way to make sure every employee is on the same page with the transition, and they can recommend the right software to securely manage employee document access.  In addition to actually document scanning and archiving your paper documents, most document scanning firms offer training for your employees. 

Before any medical office can make the leap into electronic medical records (EMR), they must first be able to visualize how the new “paperless” practice will look.  It is only by looking at the big picture that medical practitioners can see how they will benefit from making the transition.  Besides making any medical office more efficient and more compliant with government mandated privacy laws, the implementation of an EMR system will yield multiple benefits in terms of efficiency.  Once the new EMR system is up and running, the office will save time, money and valuable office space while improving the quality and accuracy of doctor-patient communication.

 

Implementation involves the installation of a network infrastructure and specific document scanning hardware to get started.  Each exam room should also have a PC workstation installed if it doesn’t have one already.  Before the current paper charts can be “retired”, a system of doing this effectively must be decided upon. Some offices only transition the charts to EMRs on an “as-seen” basis, which means they would only scan the documents of patients they plan to see that day.  Other offices use the “A to Z” approach.  Either one works fine. 

 

Key elements of the paper chart must first be summarized before they can be transitioned into an EMR.  This is where the process can get a little tricky, because a physician may enter a progress note for the patient, and then pass it on to a nurse to add their medication list.  Doctors would have to choose which documents in the chart should be scanned.

 

A system must then be established for integrating information and/or document scanning from external sources.  These may include radiology reports, lab results, consult letters and the like.  Doing this effectively requires an electronic interface between the institutions that interact with the office most frequently.  This has proven to be an ideal strategy, as evidenced by the fact that 90 percent of all external data comes into doctor’s offices via electronic interfaces. 

 

Once every chart has been scanned and the proper workflow parameters have been set up, medical practices realize immediate benefits by adopting an EMR system.

By allowing users to store documents in a structured, digital environment, document management software helps small business owners to be more organized and flexible in running their business.  By including metadata to describe the contents of each document in the system, automated document management software provides much-needed structure and hierarchy for important documents, and puts them into a more intuitive workflow for user accessibility. 

Some of the latest document management programs are so sophisticated that they can automatically add Meta tags to office documents.  Known as “auto tagging”, this process works by dragging a document scanning  file into a folder that allows it to “inherit” the metadata information from other documents in the same folder.

Software programs such as FileHold will store and manage nearly every type of file, but even more importantly it can also search these documents for specific text and index them accordingly.  Supported documents include any Microsoft Office format, plus similar programs like Lotus, WordPerfect, Corel, Freelance and others.  It will also work with HTML documents and PDF files.

With so many employees “touching” a file, and sharing administrative rights, it may seem like revisions would be difficult to manage. However, document scanning management software can maintain a virtual paper trail, showing who viewed or changed it and when, and better yet, it will also retain all versions of the document so an earlier version can be recovered. 

Images can also be stored in a document management system, and they can be stored in their original, or native, format.  While it is recommended that users convert images to PDF files for optimum efficiency, it isn’t necessary to do that.  Just like text documents, images are indexed using metadata tags that include important keywords and phrases pertaining to the image.

It doesn’t take much for an office to become cluttered, especially when the office is accustomed to keeping paper records of everything and holding onto old files for years. It wasn’t until so many offices started to invest in document scanning that office managers realized how much space they were wasting previously. Of course, office space management isn’t the only reason to consider going paperless. It does a whole lot more than eliminate mountains of paperwork. By choosing an experienced document scanning provider, the same papers that once took up space in your office will now become a part of your client database. This may seem like a tedious process, but using the latest document management software it is possible to catalog multiple documents simultaneously, while also making them “searchable” under several different categories. One objection that is common among small business owners is their fear that the data will be lost, or that it will fall into the wrong hands. However, with the right document scanning and storage, it is possible to keep your office files more secure online than they ever were in your office. Multiple back-up files are stored on a secure server that is private, hack-proof and perfectly safe. Safeguards can be added to make your data even more secure and compliant with privacy laws. Instead of paying employees to make copies and file documents, a document management solution will vastly improve their productivity. They will have more time to spend with customers and clients, and because every document is now at their fingertips, they will be able to offer much better customer service. A document scanning and storage solution is the best way to make your business more productive and service-oriented, which will ultimately improve your bottom line.

As the paperless office becomes the new “normal”, many small businesses now find themselves grappling with the manipulation of scanned content. For example, when a law firm or medical office converts to a digital platform for record-keeping, there is usually a need to access a scanned document and updated it at some point. This isn’t always necessary with medical charts, because EMRs convert charts into online forms, but there are many other scanned documents that will require some editing down the road. One of the best solutions for the conversion of image files, or PDFs, into text-rich searchable documents is to use document scanning. It can be done in many languages, and allows law firms, archive facilities and museums to search, catalog, and manipulate the content of image files. Many offices use HTML programming language in OCR scanning because it allows for quick access and simple editing. In addition to converting these scanned documents into searchable text, OCR scanning can also structure the data for conversion to Excel. Of course, the success of any Excel conversion through OCR will depend greatly upon the readability and structure of the existing pages. Document scanning that has already have tabulated data (using delimited tabs and spaces) usually generate the best result, while sheets with non-standard columns may need to be manually adjusted. There are other ways to make the conversion from image file to Excel, such as Zonal Software, Adobe Acrobat, and Visual Basic, but these can be time consuming and more expensive than document scanning. A great way to determine which solution is best for your needs is to ask for a test or sample.

As a way to cut down on paper and improve efficiencies, many medical offices have gone through the lengthy process of document scanning and indexing every paper medical chart. While the “paperless office” represents a major step forward in improving patient care, it is only the beginning of an industry-wide transformation. With the recent healthcare reform legislation comes a new emphasis on Healthcare Information Technology (HIT), which is expected to redefine the way information is stored, evaluated and transmitted throughout the medical community. Instead of using electronic medical records (EMRs), healthcare providers will be transitioning to electronic health records (EHRs). EHRs will take the quantitative data from a standard digital health record and make it accessible to a broad range of public and private entities. Many fear that this could compromise patient privacy. Until recently, the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) by medical offices wasn’t seen as a threat to patient privacy. This is because an EMR is generally used by only one organization, as a replacement for a paper chart. While the record exists on a computer, it is no less secure than paper medical charts, and some would argue that it is even more secure. Professional document scanning companies and document scanning software have made it possible for healthcare facilities to access digital charts with ease. However, an EHR is an aggregate electronic health record that is gathered cumulatively and available across multiple platforms. Here, HIPAA rules will be a major consideration in ensuring privacy and security of patient information. Individual medical offices need not be concerned about how the industry wide adoption of EHR systems will impact their individual records. Each practitioner will only be responsible for their own EMRs. This will require four types of security measures are taken: physical security of computers, user security for the patient database, system security to prevent a hard drive crash and network security to prevent hackers. As long as each of these four areas is addressed, the risk of compromising patient data is very minimal. Most professional document scanning companies work with many medical practitioners and will make sure patient data is indexed and stored securely.

With so many document scanning programs now on the market, it may seem relatively simple to “go paperless” in a traditional paper office. But if your office happens to be a law firm or healthcare facility, then document scanning and indexing will be a major undertaking. As more companies start to use document scanning software on their own; they are finding it to be a huge drain on resources and complicated set-up for untrained office staff. Here are three reasons why you should consider a professional document scanning service instead: Less Expensive. Practically every law firm or medical practice will approach the “paperless” project by purchasing a document scanner. However these machines can generally scan only scan 1,000 pages per day. Purchasing a high volume scanner will be a lot more expensive, and the people in charge of the project must be paid to pull staples, archive documents, index the scanned documents and run the scanner. A professional document scanning company will base their price on a lower price-per-page which means the total price will be based on the number of converted documents instead of the hours spent on the project. Faster turnaround. Since document scanning is relatively new, it is difficult for companies to gauge the amount of time it should take employees to finish the operation. Instead of letting the project drag on forever, a document scanning service will responsibly deliver results in a pre-determined timeframe. Since they are not paid by the hour, the job will be completed as quickly as possible and it will be done right. Better Quality. Outsourced document scanning means that a team of experienced professionals will personally manage the project. They will ensure that the image quality and accuracy of data are given the utmost attention. Businesses should think twice before investing a lot of time, resources and energy in a document scanning project. A team of professionals will make the job a lot more cost-effective and quick.