From Processing Patient Intake Forms to Storing Documents

Who?

Millenium Chiropractic, patient intake forms, PDFfiller, processing forms, whitepaper

Millennium Chiropractic, owned and operated for 20 years by Dr. Meral Elgendy, is based in Riverside, California. The group specializes in chiropractic services and massage therapy. Dr. Elgendy herself specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of neuromusculoskeletal disorders caused by auto accidents, as well as work-related injuries, sports injuries and the pain caused from the stresses of everyday life. Her treatment is drug-free and natural and her care emphasizes understanding and treating the underlying problems.

Millenium Chiropractic, patient intake forms, PDFfiller, processing forms, whitepaper

In order to properly treat patients, Dr. Elgendy both treats patients and owns the clinic at which she works. She is also a mother of three, which makes her time especially valuable. In her practice, she emphasizes thorough care; this makes her time especially important, which is why she turned to PDFfiller to solve many of her clinic’s administrative problems.

The Problem

Millenium Chiropractic, patient intake forms, PDFfiller, processing forms, whitepaper

Dr. Elgendy was facing a number of problems at her chiropractic clinic. Inefficiencies were costing her time, money, and energy and impacting the relationships she had with her patients and her ability to provide care effectively.

Patient intake was clumsy and slow. Patients would have to fill out intake forms manually in the office. “Some patients take 20 minutes to fill out the intake sheet form,” Elgendy said. Before PDFfiller this was time spent in the waiting room and not in the examining room: it was a waste of patient and doctor time. All of these patient documents would also have to be stored on-site in order to ensure they were available for reference at all times. “I used to have over one thousand folders for my patients and accounting folders, three big filing cabinets full of them.”

Before they started using PDFfiller, Millennium Chiropractic also had issues in communicating patient information with other medical providers and attorneys. Sometimes Millennium would need to send one page of a document; at other times, they’d need to send the whole file to a contact. In either situation, transmitting paper files was a time-consuming, involved, multi-step process.

The Solution:
PDFfiller

PDFfiller form

Millennium Chiropractic uses PDFfiller “every day, all day long,” says Elgendy. And she has found no shortage of ways to make use of all that PDFfiller offers during her office’s daily work. At first, she just used PDFfiller to type directly onto PDF documents, “I can just click on them and add what I need to them,” she said.

But PDFfiller was so intuitive that as Elgendy experimented with it, she found more and more ways to integrate it into her office workflow. “Let me see whether I can type on these pages,” she asked herself, “Add pages?” “Merge documents?” “Can I use it as my patient filing system?” PDFfiller can do all these things and more.

As soon as they walk in the door, Elgendy and her receptionist use PDFfiller — it is an integral part of their office workflow.

PDFfiller is particularly useful for processing patient intake information. Before patients even enter the office, they are able to complete intake forms digitally. Elgendy has added the intake sheets to her website using LinkToFill, which enables patients to complete intake forms digitally at home. The process for creating a digitally completable intake form is simple: Elgendy can create or upload a form to the PDFiller’s online document editor, make specific fields fillable, and then distribute the link so patients can complete and sign the intake form on any internet-connected device, at home or on the go.

Fig A. – Creating a filliable patient intake form with PDFfiller

Fig A. – Creating a filliable patient intake form with PDFfiller

Once in the office, Patient ID and insurance cards are scanned and uploaded to a unique patient file in PDFfiller. That file is then merged together with the patient’s intake sheet and examination notes to create a single comprehensive digital patient file. During the examination, Elgendy will digitally take notes and sign them in the patient’s file in PDFfiller. For each subsequent visit, Elgendy can add notes to the patient file immediately and completely digitally. Because the notes are digital, she can copy and paste relevant information, expediting the process. Intake forms, scanned documents, and patient exam notes are collated and stored securely on PDFfiller’s servers making them easily accessible from anywhere on any internet-connected device at any time.

Millennium Chiropractic doesn’t just use PDFfiller to collect information from patients and the doctors providing care — it also uses the service to distribute medical and financial information securely to other medical providers, attorneys, contractors, vendors, and accountants. “I use PDFfiller for everything,” says Elgendy.

Fig B. – Send patient files safely and securely with PDFfiller.

Fig B. – Send patient files safely and securely with PDFfiller.

Millennium Chiropractic often needs to send patient files to other medical providers to whom they refer patients and with PDFfiller, Elgendy can “choose the form or even the page that I need to email or fax to the medical provider [and] email and fax right from patient’s file [within PDFfiller]” and the sending history — including delivery and sending confirmation — is recorded. Moreover, the “personal injury attorneys representing my patients in personal injury files need the whole patient file. So, I can send the entire file with one click right from the patient folder in PDFfiller — I don’t need to print and mail the file or sit by a fax machine forever.”

The Benefits of
Using PDFfiller

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Speed

Using PDFfiller saves time throughout the continuum of care. Elgendy has almost eliminated the waiting time of her patients by allowing them to fill the form out at home. Using LinkToFill “really cuts the time” it takes to process patients, Elgendy said. Moreover, making electronic forms fillable online also means that instead of having to go through the time-consuming effort of processing patients in the front-office, Millennium Chiropractic can get them into the examining room almost immediately. This means they can see more patients, more quickly.

Fig. C – Creating a filliable public-facing form with PDFfiller.

Fig. C – Creating a filliable public-facing form with PDFfiller.

Moreover, PDFfiller enables Elgendy to access patient files and complete her patient notes more quickly by being able to copy and paste relevant information from previous consultations — “Instead of typing for hours and hours,” she said, “notes are ready in ten seconds”, making it “so much easier” to keep patient files up to date and meaning she can provide a higher level of care to more people.

The fact that PDFfiller allows Elgendy to distribute medical and financial information securely to other medical providers, attorneys, contractors, vendors, and accountants electronically, greatly expedites her office workflow.

“It’s so much more work without PDFfiller — probably 30-40 hours a month more work if we had to do all the scanning and printing the old way,” Elgendy said — estimating that it would take four times as long to complete her work by hand than it would with PDFfiller.

Double quotes

“It’s so much more work without PDFfiller — probably 30-40 hours a month more work if we had to do all the scanning and printing the old way,”

– Dr. Meral Elgendy, Millennium Chiropractic Clinic

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Accuracy

Because PDFfiller allows patients to submit their forms digitally, Millennium Chiropractic can be sure that all documents are legible and that information has been entered completely. Moreover, in the examining room, Elgendy can take notes more accurately using PDFfiller’s digital solution — she can copy and paste relevant sections from previous appointments and because the process is quicker, she can ensure that all information is recorded.

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Save Space

Gone are the hundreds of folders and three big filing cabinets in which Elgendy once kept all of her patient records. Now, using PDFfiller, Elgendy has digitized all of her patient records, both past and present.

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Security

Keeping track of thousands of confidential paper documents can also carry a risk but with PDFfiller, “I don’t have to worry about something being lost,” said Elgendy. Moreover, “HIPAA compliance was the number one priority when making a decision to use PDFfiller,” said Elgendy. Indeed, PDFfiller’s emphasis on security means that documents are stored in a completely safe manner. Elgendy has even digitized old patient files and uploaded them to PDFfiller in order to ensure that all her documents are accessible and protected. Moreover, PDFfiller makes it safe to transmit confidential documents. No longer do you have to worry about important information getting lost in the mail or looked at by prying eyes. Instead, you can transfer documents directly to their intended recipient electronically by fax or email in a HIPAA compliant way.

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Customer Service

PDFfiller makes it a priority to listen to customers and help them make the most of PDFfiller’s service. PDFfiller customer service has helped Elgendy make the most of the service — there is a “wonderful answer time. In less than ten minutes someone answers you,” Elgendy said. Moreover, because of Elgendy’s significant patient load and reliance on PDFfiller’s online data storage solution, PDFfiller increased the storage size of her account, enabling her to digitize information for all past, present, and future patients.

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Save Money

Elgendy has used PDFfiller to reduce her administrative overhead significantly. Because document storage and work hours are so valuable, PDFfiller is not just making it easier for Millennium Chiropractic to care for their patients, but improving their bottom-line as well.

Conclusion

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PDFfiller is the easiest way to send, complete, edit, manage, and store documents. Its HIPAA compliance means that not only can medical care providers improve their workflow, but also that their documents are secure. PDFfiller has improved her ability to process patients, take notes, and store and transmit documents. Because it has worked so well for her, Elgendy has recommended the service to over 100 people and thinks that “PDFfiller would also work great for small insurance billers and chiropractors [as well as] cash practices and even attorneys.

Clocks with different minutes on top of forms in meaning of saved time with pdffiller service

For Elgendy, it is not just that PDFfiller improves the efficiency of her practice, enabling her to treat more clients more effectively, but that ultimately, it cuts down on her work load. As a mother and as a care provider, Elgendy has struggled to eliminate administrative work and make the best use of the day’s limited hours — “I even bought an HR system to try and it didn’t work for me, it required time and was more work than help,” she said. “PDFfiller is so much more efficient,” Elgendy continued. “I’m incredibly happy… I can’t imagine my life without PDFfiller anymore.”

For the complete paper, click on the link below:

pdf  From Processing Patient Intake Forms