What is Updox?
How is Updox different than document scanning and sharing software packages?
How is Updox different than an electronic fax service?
How is Updox different than other document editing software?
Should I use Updox instead of just using lab interfaces to import reports to my EMR?
What if I don’t have fast internet access; can Updox still help me?
How do I know that Updox is secure?
How do I know that my records won’t get lost with Updox?
Is Updox for my front office staff or for my providers?
Is Updox for my front office staff or for my providers?
Updox is a communication and document management program specifically for medical practices and medical providers. Updox is a combination fax, e-mail, and secure messaging system that features patient record importing and exporting, document editing, forms creation, office workflow, and action tracking – all for the operating cost of a typical fax system!
For a little more than a dollar a day, you or your office can exchange faxes, secure messages, e-mails, voice files, and documents with patients, other providers, labs, and pharmacies – efficiently getting documents, images and records in and out of your EMR, your network drives, or your PC – all from the same internet-based platform.
Updox takes about the same time to learn as a new fax or e-mail system, and you don’t need an IT resource to use it.
Updox has the common features found in document scanning and sharing packages, but it goes much further. Within Updox, you can utilize many of your EMR’s sign-off and categorizing features, and you can take advantage of multiple communication features for sharing documents with patients and other offices. With scanning and sharing packages, you would need to jump back and forth between several applications just to get a portion of the same benefits.
Updox is an electronic fax service, but it’s also much more. Updox includes tight integration with EMR systems that eliminates several extra steps you would require with another fax service when importing faxes into EMR systems. It also enables you to annotate documents that need to be faxed or that have just been received, using tight security over signatures and edits to satisfy the strict recordkeeping requirements of medical practices. Updox also provides secure delivery options, in addition to traditional fax, for those exchanges that you wish to remain extra confidential and HIPAA compliant. Plus, in one step, a faxed lab report received in Updox can be quickly shared securely with a patient, along with embedded comments and redactions.
Updox contains the common editing features of many expensive document editing software packages, but combines them with the efficiency of being able to share, integrate, sign-off, and file these documents, to multiple destinations, without ever leaving Updox. With document editing software, you would need to save the file, and then open other applications to accomplish what Updox does in one system.
You should use Updox if you want to save steps. Rather than having to locate the patient first and then find the lab report to import, Updox permits you to do a quick search of patients after you already have the lab report in front of you – and optionally after you’ve made comments, notified any key personnel, made edits, signed off – and to simultaneously share it securely with the patient (with unique notes) and file it the right EMR category.
Definitely. Most of the processing takes place right on your computer, and the majority of the transmissions in and out of Updox don’t occur while you’re waiting on them. Faxes, e-mails and messages arrive in Updox continuously, and when you send documents out or save them to your EMR or PC, you’re done. Even spotty connections don’t spell trouble generally as these transactions queue up when they can’t go through so that they go when the connection is restored.
A faster connection will: (1) help you get set up faster, and (2) make a noticeable difference for certain, typically less common, functions, such as searching for a network contact or grabbing a file from your network. In our experience, these aren’t enough to offset the broader speed and integration benefits of Updox.
Updox adds considerable security to your communications to help you comply with HIPAA. Instead of only depending insecure and non-trackable e-mail or potentially unreliable and non-reusable faxing, Updox also provides a secure, persistent, auditable communications method for your most vulnerable transmissions.
All communication between your computer and our servers is encrypted using industry-standard SSL encryption, up to 256-bit depending on your browser. Passwords are stored encrypted in our database, and we are even unable to decrypt them ourselves. Our software is firewalled behind level 3 security.
Even the information you provide to pay for Updox is extra safe. Your credit card data is received directly and stored by credit card processor rather than us, for an added level of protection.
Updox queues every communication and filing action in redundant hard-drives – that means that even if there’s a log-jam in another system – someone else’s fax or e-mail – Updox will continue to hold that record until it can get through. Further, Updox makes daily back-ups of the entire system, so that if you ever absolutely need a record from several days, months, or years back, it’s still there.
Updox is a distribution and exchange system for your records – like FedEx – where your office systems and those of your communication partners – are maintaining the more permanent records. Updox easily allows you to file records in your EMR and/or you other computer systems, so that you have them locally, in your permanent filing systems.
There is plenty for both in Updox. One of the really unique attributes of Updox is that it isn’t designed more exclusively for one or the other. In that way, Updox optimizes the workflow of the entire office, and not just a few of the staff or professionals.
Staff may see heavier usage in Updox to file incoming reports, to notify physicians of time critical messages, and to send out referral documents, while providers may see heavier usage in Updox sending out prescriptions and lab orders, and using it to communicate with patients and other providers.
If you see enough time savings, added security, and improved tracking to justify a little more than a $1/day, you’ll have your answer. While not everyone manages their office with a close eye on cost, most practices we’ve found value the convenience, speed, security, and confirmation of receipt and follow-up as precious benefits that may overshadow any cost comparison.
No matter which camp you are in, you get 15 days to try it for free and decide for yourself.
