Medical Regulatory Compliance using PDFfiller

Who?

Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. has served clients across the country for over 25 years. Based in Waltham Massachusetts and specializing in infertility treatments and assisted reproductive therapies, Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. maintains licenses and a distribution network in 25 states, making sure thousands of thousands of customers have the medication they need.

Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. is guided by a desire to provide safe, fast, and high quality pharmacy services complete with an emphasis on customer service and patient education. Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. isn’t just in the business of selling medication; instead, they combine the expertise of pharmaceutical and nursing specialists to ensure customers adequately and appropriately treat their fertility issues.

“[Fertility] is all we do”, said David Brass, the company’s Chief Compliance Officer. As Chief Compliance Officer, Brass handles of all regulatory affairs and is responsible for making sure that Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. submits the quarterly, bi-annual, or annual state licensure forms and insurance contracts the company depends upon to continue its operations all over the country.

The Problem

Staying up to date with all regulatory, licensing, and insurance forms is a demanding and critical task for Brass and Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc.

“I use PDFfiller regularly for [state] licensing, which has to be renewed yearly or every two years, in addition to other reports I might have to fill out on a quarterly or bi-annual basis. And each license expires at a different time, so every month, I have licenses that are expiring that have to be renewed,” said Brass.

Keeping current with compliance documents is critical for Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc.. The operations of the company, like all of those in the medical field, and others across a range of industries, depends on making sure compliance documents are submitted and received on time. For any company, ensuring that these documents get to regulatory agencies quickly and legibly is critical. Failing in this regard would undermine Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc.’s bottomline as well as its customer relationships and, for this reason, they depend on PDFfiller.

Most of the regulatory, licensing, and insurance forms that Village Pharmacy has to deal with are not fillable electronically. Some documents are paper-based and filling them out means that either Brass or his team have to fill them out by hand. Moreover, many of the documents that are sent by the state or insurance companies digitally are not fillable online, which means that the forms have to printed out, completed by hand, scanned, and uploaded or manually be made digitally fillable.

Legibility was another problem intrinsic to the way Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. was completing forms before they turned to PDFfiller: “if it’s not readable, it can be rejected. You’re on a time limit. To have something rejected because it’s not clear is problematic,” said Brass.

Besides legibility, filling out forms by hand or making them digital and going through a complicated multi-step process to return them to the original sender, is time consuming and difficult. “[Before] they would have to be done by hand or I would have to give them to somebody else to use Adobe [to] turn it into a fillable form. It was cumbersome and it wasn’t ideal,” Brass said.

The consequences of improper form return are also significant. If Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. submits forms late or that are illegible and have to be resubmitted after the deadline, the company “can be fined, you’ll have to stop conducting business in that state until it’s completed. There are a lot of things that could happen that would make it difficult to continue your business,” said Brass.

Since Brass found PDFfiller while searching the internet for a tool to convert forms into HIPAA-compliant fillable PDFs, Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. has depended on this comprehensive online document solution. Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. relies on PDFfiller to make sure that there insurance, licensing, and regulatory forms are submitted efficiently, legibly, and punctually.

The Solution: PDFfiller

PDFfiller makes it easy to fill out, sign, and distribute forms electronically. For David Brass and Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc., relying on PDFfiller ensures that regulatory, licensure, and insurance documents are in on time, meaning that business continues uninterrupted.

“PDFfiller makes it easy for me to upload a form and put in the information I need, rather than handwriting it where they may not be able to read it and then reject the application,” said Brass.

“I deal with a lot of regulatory agencies and our own internal employees,” and for Brass, PDFfiller has proven itself to be extremely helpful in all document-related tasks.

The process is easy. Once Brass downloads or receives a document that needs completing from a state body or insurance group, he just has to import it into PDFfiller and fill it out using PDFfiller’s intuitive GUI. Brass can simply type the relevant information into the fillable fields, use Xs or checkmarks in relevant sections, and if he makes a mistake, use PDFfiller’s erase tool to eliminate errors from the document.

PDFfiller also allows you to save a signature into your account and apply it to any document instantly. Once forms have been completed, Brass can sign them using PDFfiller’s legally binding digisign technology and submit it in just a few clicks. If another user is signing the document, PDFfiller notifies Brass immediately, meaning he can move forward with his workflow without repeatedly having to check the status of the document.

Brass regularly has to re-file documents and PDFfiller makes it easy to recycle the form by simply erasing and re-typing the date or alternatively, PDFfiller allows him to add fillable and create a fillable template of the same document to be used repeatedly in the future.

Once the document is completed, Brass can send it to recipients instantly, either for signature or submission.

“I’m using PDFfiller regularly,” said Brass, “not only for filling out the [license] renewal applications, but for other things as well,” including “sending contracts out [and] sending them internally to someone else, [including] pharmacists [who] need to sign them.”

The Benefits of Going Digital
with PDFfiller

PDFfiller is the fastest way to fill out documents electronically. “It saves time and I guess time is the biggest return on investment,” said Brass. “Time is money, and the less time you have to spend on something, the cheaper it is.” Using PDFfiller as a complete document management solution means that users can add legally binding signatures to electronic documents in just a click. Moreover, filling out, editing, and annotating digital documents is faster than ever, with PDFfiller’s easy to use online solution. How much time Brass saves is directly related to how much work he has to do: “it depends on how many applications I have to fill out that particular month”, but the time savings accrued using PDFfiller’s efficient digital solution increase along with the volume of work. “Potentially it could save me a lot of time,” said Brass.

Using PDFfiller to complete documents online means that work is always presented neatly and users avoid the mistakes and misunderstandings common with poor penmanship. For Brass and Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc., not only did filling in documents by hand mean that they took longer to complete, but issues with handwriting could cause problems that affected the operational side of the business and its bottom line. “The fact that not having something rejected for penmanship,” said Brass, “is also a return on investment” because it means that Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. can continue serving customers without interruption.

Using PDFfiller is the easiest way to fill out documents. Now, Brass no longer needs to handle piles of paper or print most of his documents, fill them out by hand and then upload them for sending. Instead, he can use PDFfiller to streamline his workflow, complete documents quickly and easily online and store them in his account for future use or reference. PDFfiller makes adding a legally binding electronic signature to documents easy — users can upload their signature from their computer or mobile device or sign documents digitally. Users can also add fillable fields to their documents and create templates to make document completion faster and easier. And because PDFfiller is a completely online service, users can edit, sign, and send documents from from any internet-connected device at any time from anywhere.

PDFfiller is HIPAA compliant and is the safest way to send, sign, and store documents online. Brass, Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. and medical professionals across the country rely on PDFfiller to keep their documents safe. “[Security] was my top priority, since the documents I complete are very confidential,” said Brass. “So HIPAA compliance and BAA agreements were very important. Without them, I would not have chosen PDFfiller.” PDFfiller relies on Amazon’s S3 servers, which feature high-level security and backups to make sure your documents are always safe. PDFfiller also allows users like Brass and Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. to increase the security of their documents by encrypting folders and adding password protection and two-factor authentication. An Audit Trail means you can see whenever your account is accessed and your documents are added, deleted, or saved. Automatic backups mean that users will never lose, or inadvertently have their documents destroyed.

PDFfiller’s personal, professional, and business subscriptions are affordable and offer various features targeted to different levels of users, meaning, you can choose the plan best suited to your needs. “I don’t have any complaints regarding the cost,” said Brass. “I think it’s where it should be, I think it’s reasonable.”

PDFfiller’s 24/7 customer service means there is always a staff member ready to help users with their queries.

Conclusion

Using PDFfiller means that Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. and David Brass can streamline their workflow, ensuring all documents are sent to insurers and state regulatory agencies on time and are legible. PDFfiller’s HIPAA compliance also means that documents are stored and sent safely, a crucial component of any document management solution for those in the medical space. Faster, neater, and more convenient than handwriting, PDFfiller has “worked out well” for Brass and Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc.. PDFfiller expedites and improves the process of filling compliance documents, making it the ideal digital solution for the Village Fertility Pharmacy, Inc. and businesses and professionals across a range of industries.