Faxes and hippa

[JR2ALTA]

Re: Faxes and hippa

The problem is no one in the world can guarantee reliable, fast, high quality fax transmissions.....yet we're expected to fix the crap.

Even when the manual describes an error code it's incomprehensible and useless for troubleshooting.

DIE FAXES DIE

[KenB]

Re: Faxes and hippa

The funniest ones are the medical customers that insist on having fax to make it compliant, but have us program the machine to forward all received faxes to an email so it doesn't waste paper.

[tonerhead]

Re: Faxes and hippa

I've been telling customers with issues, nothing I can do. A common thread is "we will have to look elsewhere then" The salesman from other company says their fax works fine, blah, blah, blah.

Another thing about emails and hippa is that emails are typically scanned for patterns of malware in them. Make the leap to say they are "read" by this so they say.

Like was previously mentioned medical and legal are the cheapest professions around when it comes to updating office equipment. Why should they pay $$ for something that works when faxing is free.

The really sad thing about hippa and faxing is there no longer is analog phone lines anywhere. It might be analog from our business to the central office of the phone company, but from there it follows the same path as emails, going through the same routers, switches, and gateways to it's final destination. Personally Hippa should re-evaluate fax security and proclaim it no longer compliant.

The only drawback on email is that it is stored on the sending and receiving pc's. Contrast this to a fax, the original and the received pages are either stored securely in a file cabinet or shredded.

We rely on internet security daily in our online purchases and bill pay. So the reliability and security is out there. The endpoints (starting and stopping computers) are the issue. If they are hacked we have a data breach. Really, what is the difference if my medical records get hacked in an email or through the medical data storage. At least an email is encrypted, their data storage probably is not.

It's no win for everyone because cyber crime is hard to prove, difficult to trace, and there are few qualified to enforce it as well as difficult to punish.

[BaconSteve]

Re: Faxes and hippa

The funniest ones are the medical customers that insist on having fax to make it compliant, but have us program the machine to forward all received faxes to an email so it doesn't waste paper.

[qbert69]

Re: Faxes and hippa

FAX is predicated and was designed strictly on the use of a POTS UTP Analog line. Any deviation from that BASTARDIZES the technology!!! Fax converted from analog to digital through VOIP or whatever other conversion service steps OUTSIDE the bounds of the point-to-point protocol when processed through digital but also bastardizes the audio tone/signal in the conversion process, potentially causing missed/dropped/broken & potentially hacked communications. I ALWAYS ask a customer if they have a DEDICATED ANALOG LINE!!! If they don't have a dedicated line & a consistent present dialtone, I go no further than to explain that fax was DESIGNED for a POTS UTP line and any other bastardization of the signal processing destroys the intent and functionality of the original communication process. And leave it at that!!! If the fax was working before they put in the damn VOIP device, well then, they need to contact the VOIP provider to work that shit out!!! I CERTAINLY don't get paid by the VOIP provider to troubleshoot their shit!!![emoji41][emoji1303]...if you paid for the VOIP line to "save money" and your "fax doesn't work", well I guess you need to fix your own damn problem, don't you?![emoji848]

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk

[tonerhead]

Re: Faxes and hippa

Side note. We were dealing with a fax issue today. Seems that faxes hit/miss randomly (imagine that). When talking with the phone provider, they said they can no longer support faxing (imagine that). Their explanation is that depending upon the number dialed and path taken, some dialings need area code, others do not. You can dial the same number two different times and it may or may not need the area code. Their response was the customer needs to manually dial in hook mode anymore to be able to listen in and manually connect when they hear receiving handshake. Makes sense I guess.

Time to put the fax with 8-tracks, cassette tapes, model T's, silent movies, b/w televisions. In 10 years copier repairmen will also join the ranks. Glad to be gone by then.

[Santander]

Re: Faxes and hippa

The reason many medical users still want fax is very simple, look at the evidence chain in a Federal court. First accepted is the original document, followed by a "copy" of the original document, then followed by a fax of the original document, followed by a PDF of the original, etc. So if a medical office has a fax of the document, it is placed before any electronic versions of the document, ie pdf files, email, etc. Learned this from working with a Federal District court a few years ago looking to eliminate paper documents. What amazes me is these same courts require attorneys to file all documents via pdf! It seems counter intuitive to require pdf files when a fax supercedes an electronic version. Until the evidence chain is changed in Federal courts you will still see users requiring fax just to protect themselves.

[KenB]

Re: Faxes and hippa

The reason many medical users still want fax is very simple, look at the evidence chain in a Federal court. First accepted is the original document, followed by a "copy" of the original document, then followed by a fax of the original document, followed by a PDF of the original, etc. So if a medical office has a fax of the document, it is placed before any electronic versions of the document, ie pdf files, email, etc. Learned this from working with a Federal District court a few years ago looking to eliminate paper documents. What amazes me is these same courts require attorneys to file all documents via pdf! It seems counter intuitive to require pdf files when a fax supercedes an electronic version. Until the evidence chain is changed in Federal courts you will still see users requiring fax just to protect themselves.

Some years back, we had a call from an attorney’s office about the version of PDF that their MFP was creating when scanning.

The court required a certain version or higher. If I recall, the MFP was creating version 1.3 PDFs, and they required 1.5. They were rejecting the older versions.

There were no firmware updates available to resolve the issue.

We got lucky. The customer was near the end of their lease, and it was fairly painless to get them into a newer model that created the newer version.

A bit off the topic of fax, but certainly related.