Faxing continues to be a staple process in pharmacies of all shapes and sizes, but that doesn’t mean your fax technology or workflow needs to be stuck in time. Making the digital leap with fax over IP can preserve the best qualities of fax while giving you new advantages over traditional analog fax technology.
If you’re thinking about ways to make your pharmacy more resilient in today’s competitive market, fax is an easy call. Here’s why that’s true and a few tips on how to choose the modern fax product that’s right for your business.
Pharmacies are dealing with unique challenges today that require them to be more efficient and cost-effective.
First, they face increased competition. Independent pharmacies are competing for customers with chain pharmacies, who in turn compete with mail-order and specialty outlets. CVS alone now controls 26%1 of the prescription drug market share, and mail order pharmacy market size is expected to grow by more than 17% per year2 in the next decade.
Pharmacies must also dedicate more resources to defending against cybersecurity threats and updating healthcare information technology.
All these factors have created pressure on pharmacies to keep costs in check while incorporating security and technology into their operations, and IP fax can help meet those mandates. It lowers communications technology costs without compromising current workflows pharmacies have in place.
Also, IP faxing plans can cost a fraction of the price of analog fax, especially as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines become increasingly expensive or are removed altogether. With IP faxing, you can choose the plan that meets your needs and budget, and then scale easily and affordably as you grow.
There are several ways to implement IP fax and start reaping the benefits. Here are three options and how to know the right one for you.
Best for: Pharmacies with smaller fax volumes that want to continue using walk-up faxing.
Independent pharmacies or those with lower faxing volume can easily switch their analog line to a more reliable and affordable IP fax service while still using their fax machine or multifunction printer (MFP).
Your plan provider will install an analog telephone adapter (ATA) to convert the machine’s analog signal to digital format during sending and receiving. You can then choose a plan from your provider that accommodates your fax requirements.
A T.38 IP fax line gives you the reliability and affordability of IP fax transmission without disrupting your internal operations.
Best for healthcare organizations with large faxing volumes, such as chain drug stores and pharmacies, hospitals or long-term care facilities that want secure and reliable fax service.
These larger healthcare organizations not only need the capacity to fax large volumes, but they also need to meet stringent privacy requirements for HIPAA compliance. The best choice that ticks all the boxes is T.38 Fax SIP trunks.
This winning combination allows traffic to move over networks specifically conditioned for fax, enhancing quality, reliability and speed. It’s highly scalable, so you can fax as little or as much as you need. You can also add an extra layer of encryption to maximize data security and privacy so your organization’s fax transmissions can be HIPAA-compliant.
Cloudli’s T.38 IP fax offers self-healing technology that monitors and dynamically adjusts routing to choose the most high-performing routes. This feature, powered by machine learning, improves deliverability on every fax and gives you the reassurance that your pharmacy’s important faxes are transmitted successfully.
T.38 Fax SIP trunks give you the ability to access your fax server from virtually anywhere. It’s also a great choice for organizations that want built-in business continuity in the case of extreme weather or technical failure.
Best for: Pharmacies with small to moderate fax usage that want to send and receive from a desktop or mobile device.
Imagine your pharmacist or pharmacy technician typing a message into a computer and faxing it directly to the recipient without having to print out the document and walk to the fax machine to send it.
Imagine medication orders from a physician or insurance coverage verifications going directly into the patient’s EMR without the pharmacy staff having to scan it into the system.
These are the possibilities with virtual fax.
Investing in a virtual fax solution not only saves time, it eliminates the cost of maintenance on fax connectivity hardware. In some cases, pharmacies ditch their physical fax machine altogether, further reducing equipment expenses.
No matter which fax option you choose, IP fax meets pharmacies’ need for utmost data security. With T.38 real-time fax, data goes directly from sender to recipient without any store-and-forward vulnerabilities. By adding another layer of encryption, as mentioned above, you can rest easy knowing your data transmission is secure and reliable. As for Virtual Fax, the data is encrypted while at rest. That’s critical for meeting regulatory compliance standards and maintaining customer trust.
Fax will continue to be a mission-critical application for pharmacies for the foreseeable future. That makes it even more important to update your technology and streamline your workflow through secure, reliable and cost-efficient IP fax. Your ROI will begin mounting the minute you make the switch.
Want to learn whether Cloudli’s IP fax solutions would suit your needs and budget? Schedule time with one of our fax experts today.
[1] Statista: Top U.S. pharmacies ranked by prescription drugs market share in 2023
[2] The Business Research Company: Mail Order Pharmacy Market Definition and Segments