Best Practices: Leverage E-fax to grow your business

Healthie's E-fax platform can receive faxes from traditional (physical) fax machines AND other E-fax lines. Unlimited outbound (sending) faxes are included in all Healthie plans. These faxes are sent from a generic number that cannot receive faxes. At this time, our E-Fax partner allows faxes to be sent to U.S. and Canadian numbers. Inbound (receiving) faxes, which require a unique fax line number, is included in Healthie's Plus plan and above. Alternatively, you can purchase an e-fax line for $9.99 / month if you are on another Healthie plan.

Once you have your e-Fax line established, you'll be able to both send and receive faxes electronically through Healthie. All faxes are conveniently managed through the "Faxing" tab in your provider account. You'll see two tabs, one for "Received Faxes" and the other for "Sent Faxes." Read more about E-faxing here. 

Faxing with other healthcare providers can be a powerful way to build referral partnerships - this could be with local physicians, therapists, fitness centers, nutritionists, and behavioral health professionals. Here are some best practices we have seen, when it comes to using e-faxing to build your business and drive growth. 

Have Clients Sign a Medical Release Form

When working with clients who have a care team of multiple providers in place, it’s absolutely crucial to obtain written permission from the client to share medical information with other providers. Getting written consent for each healthcare provider you want to share information with ensures you remain HIPAA-compliant and keep your client’s information secure. In fact, both you and the provider you’re communicating with should obtain a written consent form from the client.

For Healthie members, a sample Medical Release Form is included in your Healthie Forms library for you to use. 

You can also build a Medical Release Form into your intake flow, so clients sign it right off the bat and you don’t worry about having to track them down at a later date to obtain permission. You can read more about building custom intake forms here. 

Publish Your E-Fax Number

Faxing continues to be the #1 way that clinics communicate with each other in a HIPAA-compliant manner, including for referrals and follow-up. As a result, publishing your E-Fax number on handouts, business cards, website, and social media can help spread the word about your services.

• Include your E-fax number on business cards and other promotional materials for your business
• List your E-fax line on your website, so it's easy for others to locate
• Include your E-fax number on any referral forms or chart notes you share with other providers

Add a Contact to Your Referring Provider Network

You can send either a client chart note or a document through the Healthie platform. To fax a doctor or other healthcare provider with a client’s note, you’ll want to add them to the “referring physician” section of a client’s profile. Include the fax number in this section. After you’ve “saved,” the referring healthcare provider’s information, you can go ahead and send them an e-fax. If a provider has referral other clients in the past, you won’t need to re-enter their information, simply select their name from the drop down in the “referring physician,” tab.

Include a Cover Page with Your Fax

Healthie automatically attaches a Cover Letter to all e-faxes sent through the platform. This is useful for sharing your contact information, so recipients quickly know who a fax is from, as well as providing a summary overview about a client encounter, or content of the fax notes.  

Healthie's Cover Letter Template enables you to add your own text into a predefined form field, while also automatically pulling in your relevant business information to save you time and build brand consistency. Read more about adding a cover letter to your faxes here. 

E-Fax Chart Notes or Documents

• Send a client chart note or assessment: Go to your client’s chart, from the “clients” tab on your dashboard. After you’ve written and saved a chart note, go to your ARCHIVED client notes. Select the date/note you’d like to send. On the top right-hand side you’ll see a few actions you can take, select “Select Fax.”
• Send a document: Go to the “documents” tab from your Healthie dashboard. Select the document or folder you’d like to send. On the top right-hand side, select “Send Fax.” You can select the healthcare provider you’d like to fax from the dropdown. Then select the document you’d like to attach.
• Send progress note updates after each session: The “Notes” capability is used to share a summary. Every time that you meet with a client, you’ll be able to update their chart with a new progress note. Use the Healthie templates (i.e. SOAP or ADIME chart templates), free text or create your own follow-up template. To send a progress note via E-Fax, you may want to copy from a section in your chart note, or write an overview, depending on your relationship with the provider.

Confirm Your Fax was Received

To see the status of your e-faxes, you can select the “Faxing” tab from your Healthie dashboard. You can see a summary of all of the faxes you’ve sent and received. For each item, you can view whether the e-fax is pending, sent successfully or failed to send.