Posted by Stephanie Jones on Tue, Sep 07, 2010 @ 10:13 PM
Though more and more documents are arriving electronically, paper is still a large part of most businesses. What are all the ways you share important paper documents with clients, employees and vendors:
- mail
- fax
- inner-office mail
- overnight services
- courier
What if there was a way to eliminate these methods and save some time and money in the process? One way businesses nationwide are changing the way they handle important hard copy documents is by turning them into digital format.
Mail is too slow. Faxes are on the way out and waste paper. Even e-faxes need to be stored. Inner-office mail is slower than traditional mail and rarely makes it to the right person, plus you need to have a mail room.
Let's dig deeper into overnight services. A typical package costs about $25 to ship next day. If you are in a business that relies on signatures, you probably use FedEx or UPS on a regular basis. A scanned copy of a signed document, however, is considered a legal copy. So, you could e-mail documents to a client, have them print and sign those documents and then scan and return to you. In minutes, not hours, days or weeks.
Or, take it a step further. Set up individual file cabinets online for each client and allow them to scan their signed documents right in for indefinite storage.
Why is that important? Well, how much more cost-effective would it be to e-mail documents instead of overnight them? How much clearer would a scanned copy of a document be than a fax?
Who can afford couriers these days? And isn't e-mail faster than any courier you could hire?
Look at the ways you distribute new and existing paper in your office. Going digital can speed up your way of doing business, making you more profitable and successful. As an added incentive, you won't have give your courier a holiday bonus this year.
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Fri, Sep 03, 2010 @ 03:20 PM
As the office empties, I thought I'd write my blog in celebration of the upcoming holiday: Labor Day.
Labor Day is a holiday celebrated in the United States and Canada on the first Monday in September to honor the laborer. It was inaugurated by the Knights of Labor in 1882 and made a national holiday by the U.S. Congress in 1894.
Honoring the laborers of the world is admirable. Giving us a day off (hopefully with pay) is even better. But, if you want to make every day a little less laborious for your employees, consider taking something away: paper.
One of the biggest frustrations workers face is dealing with paper.
It gets thrown away. It gets coffee spilled on it. It's on Joe's desk when Susie needs it.
To share paper, you have to fax it, mail it or courier it. Auditors have to come to the office to review it. It's just cumbersome.
So, this Labor Day, give your employees a gift that will keep giving: document management. With document management systems (particularly those that are web-based), your staff will be able to work more efficiently with less effort, because:
- documents can be found via index value or keyword searches
- they don't need to leave their desks to find files
- they can work remotely - when traveling or at home
- they can share documents with a few mouse clicks
- more than one person can view a document simultaneously
Since it is labor-themed, Labor Day is the perfect time to think about adding document management to your office operations. Give your employees something that will last long after the fireworks, BBQ sauce and picnic baskets are gone.
P.S. As an added bonus, if you need to actually work this weekend, you won't have to get out of your swimsuit.
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 @ 08:20 AM
Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Monday, August 29, 2005 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge.
Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of New Orleans became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks. However, the worst property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as all Mississippi beach-front towns, which were flooded as boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, with waters reaching as far as 12 miles from the beach. This damage forced a long-term evacuation of a significant portion of the population and labor force.
Hurricane Katrina inflicted incalculable billions in damage, altered millions of lives and destroyed thousands of small companies.
One of its biggest blows may have been to an old-fashioned way of doing business-on perishable, irreplaceable paper records that are easily destroyed by water and scattered by wind. The storm left many evacuees without drivers’ licenses, wills, credit cards or health care records. Without these paper records, storm victims faced fundamental challenges getting back on their feet in the 21st century economy.
Makeup and wardrobe consultant, Adrienne Moncrief Hemphill ran a small but thriving custom-label makeup business out of her Bay St. Louis, Mississippi home that was demolished by Hurricane Katrina. Essentially her most valuable possession was her mailing list of her some 500 customers she kept on her computer.
She lost everything in the storm, her catalogs, her Web site, her inventory of products and most disastrous of all, her mailing list. She was able to relocate to Jackson, Mississippi where she faced the prospect of essentially starting her business over again from scratch.
“I sat down with a woman who worked with me and we tried to recreate my customer list from memory,” she relates. “Eventually we were able to remember about 150 of the 500 customers I had and eventually about 200 more found me.”
But she admits, it has not been easy. But she has learned a valuable lesson. Today all the data on her computer is backed up at a remote location.
Scarier still, there were 3,000 criminal cases in progress in New Orleans alone when Katrina struck, but the District Attorney was forced to suspend many of those prosecutions because tangible evidence, including police reports, interview transcripts, fingerprints and DNA samples are lost.
In response to the disaster, New Orleans officials and the federal government started to beat the digital drum. They want companies to move from paper-based records to computerized records that can be stored off site, backed up cheaply and moved easily out of harm’s way.
Have you taken that step in your business? How long would it take you to get back to work if you were unable to access your office for four weeks? Would you be able to? Could document management make a difference?
Moving from paper to digital records is more than just a good idea – it can be a lifesaver. Ask any small business owner in New Orleans.
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Mon, Aug 23, 2010 @ 10:46 PM
Not that we love to see this kind of news, but it certainly makes a powerful case for medical billing companies use of document management: you need to secure your medical documents and scanning, then SHREDDING them can help.
Four community hospitals in Massachusetts and their associated pathology practices are investigating major breaches after tens of thousands of paper pathology records were found at a recycling station by a Boston Globe photographer who was dropping off his trash.
The hospitals are Carney Hospital, Holyoke Medical Center, Milford Regional Medical Center and Milton Hospital. The records were dumped by the former owner of a billing company who sold the company around June 1, with the new owner retaining only records from 2010, according to the newspaper.
The dumped records appear to be pathology reports from 2007 to early 2010, which include names, addresses, dates of birth, diagnoses, insurance policy numbers and Social Security numbers.
The Carney, Holyoke and Milton facilities have posted public notices of the breach on their Web sites while investigations continue. Milton Hospital believes more than 15,252 tests were performed during the three-year period on 8,000 to 12,000 patients. Holyoke Medical Center's initially estimates the breach affects 16,000 to 24,000 of their patients.
Officials at two hospitals told the Globe that the former owner of the billing company acknowledged he had the records dropped off at the recycling site. The former owner declined to speak to the newspaper, noting the issue may become a legal matter.
Posted by Leslie Haywood on Fri, Aug 20, 2010 @ 10:23 AM
Everyone is talking about document management these days, but do you really know what it is and if it’s right for your office?
In a nutshell, online document management systems allow users to store paper and electronic documents together in a centralized, web-based repository. In the past, document management was more of a ‘nice-to-have’ software tool, but now it’s becoming a business imperative, because missing documents, slow response times and non-compliance with record retention and privacy regulations can make or break a company these days.
Still not sure? Here are five signs that your office might be ready for document management.
1. Your employees cannot answer customer questions while they are on the phone. A client calls in and asks for a copy of their contract. How long would it take you to find it? How long would it take you to e-mail (or worse yet, mail) a copy?
If your answer is more than five seconds, you need document management. By storing files online in an organized manner, you can quickly locate - using keywords or index values – the right document and then e-mail it out. All while the client is still on the phone.
2. You have lost business or potential clients because documents have been lost or ‘slipped through the cracks.’ Have you ever misplaced a copy of a signed contract? Or lost a customer’s quote request? When businesses have a document management system, new paper coming into the office is typically scanned in right away, so there is no chance you could lose an important piece of information. Additionally, electronic documents can be added to the online repository to put all documents in a centralized location for easy retrieval.
3. You open a file folder and find no less than five copies of the same document. This happens all the time. In fact, some estimates say more than 80 percent of information found in an office is redundant or unnecessary information. By scanning in paperwork and labeling it, you can immediately tell if you have duplicate information or what version of a document is most recent and delete the rest.
4. There is no room to add additional employees, because files and file cabinets are everywhere. If you have so much paper in your office that you can’t add staff or in some cases, you have to move to a new location to support your files, you need a web-based document management system.
Whether you start scanning in your old documents and whittle away at the piles or merely stop adding to the growing mountains of paperwork, document management can help you eliminate the files and file cabinets in your office.
5. You’ve had to move some documents to an off-site storage location. This is a biggie. If you or your staff have to physically get up and drive to an off-site location whenever you need a document, you REALLY, REALLY need a document management system. By scanning documents into your online file cabinet instead of putting them in banker’s boxes and driving them to the record storage center, you’ll be saving money and time by making the documents accessible from any computer with an Internet connection.
If any of the signs above sound familiar, you’re ready to make the move toward a paperless office. And, getting started isn’t as hard as you think. Sign up with a reputable online document management provider and they should help you come up with a plan of attack for your paper documents. Whether you scan in all of your old files or just start with new paper coming in, you’ll quickly see signs of increased productivity in your office after you add document management.
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Fri, Aug 13, 2010 @ 01:52 PM
As you read this, I will be swimming in the beautiful waters of the Florida Keys. I hope. If the weather (and the kids) cooperate.
But, I can write my blog now and schedule it to post in the future while I watch It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia on the couch using my wireless and laptop. And that is technology at its finest.
Technology. The application of practical sciences to industry or commerce. The developers at eBridge Solutions have taken the technical process of turning paper documents into small, encrypted digital files and turned it into a science. Or artform, depending on the way you look at technology.
eBridge Solutions' web-based document management system is simple and powerful. It is a tool businesspeople use to make their lives easier, just like scheduling when a blog will post.
By scanning and storing paper documents online with other electronic documents (like e-mail or e-faxes), you are creating one central repository for all of your records. If you have remote employees or if you need to pull up a file at 2 a.m., the documents will always, always, always be available. Even if someone else is looking at the same document at the same time.
eBridge technology also automatically assigns a date and time stamp to every document entered into the system. The date and time stamp combined with our powerful audit trail are the technologies that will prove in a court of law that your document was scanned at a certain point in time and has NOT been altered since. We also encrypt your documents - in transit and at rest. And you don't even have to think about it. We do it for you.
Ah. Technology. There isn't much it CAN'T do for us. Now, if only there was a software program that could get me back from the Keys in less than six hours...
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Mon, Aug 09, 2010 @ 08:55 PM
Medical billing companies use document management systems better than just about anyone. That's why Medical Billing is our Industry of the Week.
How and why do medical billing companies use eBridge Solutions' web-based document management system differently than other companies?
First, they are typically smaller organizations with less than 10 employees. This means they need to be able to do more with less. So, putting documents at their fingertips definitely increases productivity.
Second, they may have remote employees OR work for healthcare practices located quite a distance from the main office. By storing documents online, any authorized user can access them from any computer with Internet access.
Third, they work with paper (LOTS of it) every day! Explanation of benefits (EOBs) from insurance companies, notes and charts from physicians. All of this needs to be at arm's reach.
Most of our clients need to STORE paperwork, but with medical billers, it needs to be accessible, so for them, online document management fits like a glove!
Fourth, even when they work with digital documents (like Medicare EOBs), they use eBridge Solutions' optical character recognition (OCR) tool to find the names and numbers they need on typewritten pages.
Fifth, they mark and annotate paper AND electronic documents with billing codes and notes. And eBridge supports that!
So, if you have a medical billing company, work for one or know someone who does, make sure to look at eBridge Solutions' document management system.
Want to learn more about eBridge Solutions' online document management? Call us at (877) 676-6067!
And register for eBridge Solutions' next Lunch and Learn: Document Management for Medical Billers by e-mailing info@eBridgeSolutions.com today!
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Thu, Aug 05, 2010 @ 01:29 PM
In this economy, with more customers and fewer donors, no companies are feeling the pressure to do more with less money than non-profits. In fact, many non-profits are simply struggling to stay open. There is, however, one new business trend that can actually save non-profits money – document management.
eBridge Solutions will be hosting a FREE Lunch and Learn Seminar - Non-Profit Organizations Can Save Money By Adding Document Management - on Thursday, September 9, 2010 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at their new offices in the WestShore District (1018 North Ward Street). Lunch will be provided.
eBridge Solutions' CEO, Leslie Haywood, will explain how document management can help non-profits by:
- Saving time (instant access, no more misplaced files)
- Saving money (decreased supply expenses and lower postage)
- Saving space (decreased storage needs)
- Improving service (putting documents online for easy access)
- Increasing compliance with regulations (HR and tax)
- Making outside audits easier (give auditors remote access to important documents)
- Assisting in the “green” movement
To register for this free event, click here or call (813) 849-6067 x 340. Space is limited, so sign up today!
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Mon, Aug 02, 2010 @ 08:36 PM
Well, a few things come to mind with that headline. First, you must not be using eBridge Solutions, because it's the easiest web-based document management system out there. How could anyone hate it?
Second (and a more serious answer), don't worry. If you really hate your new document management system, there are things you can do to either make it better or switch to another method of storing your paper and electronic documents. Let's look at some options...
Make your user experience better
Perhaps when you were going through your document management system training, you didn't learn all of the tips and tricks that make the system user-friendly. See if anyone on your team is using your document management tool successfully. If someone is, ask them to give fellow users a refresher class. That may be all you need to have a better experience with your DMS!
If no one is having a good experience with your document management system, write down all of the reasons why. You'll need these so that when you choose your NEXT document management system, you have a better idea of what features will be critical to successful adoption and implementation.
Switch document management providers
If you like the concept of document management and have management/staff buy-in, but the system you purchased or subscribed to isn't doing everything you need it to, SWITCH. If your current provider offersa true document management system, the documents you've added should be stored as TIF or PDF images (or some similar non-proprietary format), so you can easily upload them into another program. You should be able to transfer meta data or index values as well.
Give up and go back to storing paper
Take all of the documents that you scanned into your document management system and store them on your hard drive or in-house server. You'll need to figure out how you and your staff will be able to find the documents. And, you'll be responsible for backing up the data and ensuring it is protected from disaster. But, it can be done. This is my least-favorite option and one that I wouldn't recommend, but it's an option nonetheless!
What would I recommend? Switching to eBridge Solutions. In 2009, 94% of our customers said they were 'Satisfied' or 'Very Satisfied' with our services. Why not you?
Click here to sign up for an online demo!
Posted by Stephanie Jones on Mon, Aug 02, 2010 @ 02:01 PM
I know you've all been waiting to see what this week's featured industry would be and here it is: the surety industry. And, for those of you who aren't quite sure (like me) what a surety company does, here's the simplest definition I could find:
A surety company is a highly specialized form of insurance company that basically puts up the money to fund the bonds used by bail agents. So bail bond companies are not really the principal putting up the real money.
(This definition is specific to surety companies working with bail bond companies -- like the new client, Ninpo Surety, we added -- but apparently they also work with insurance companies, financial service firms, construction companies, mortgage companies and retailers, just to name a few.)
It makes sense, then, that Ninpo Surety signed up with eBridge Solutions for our web-based document management system. By storing their paper and electronic documents together online, Ninpo can quickly and easily manage the paperwork involved with the agencies and defendants they work with. They can share information via e-mail with a few mouse clicks and they no longer need to retain their paper files.
As eBridge continues to sign clients in new and exciting industries like the surety industry, I will feature them here for everyone to see. Perhaps it will spark interest from others or remind you why it's important to add eBridge's document management software in your office!