6 Reasons to Trash Your Fax Machine - Comments Page 1

Can anyone tell me why governmental agencies avoid using FAX or email? I understand that they claim that messages could be edited to say something embarrassing, but hard copy messages can be edited to say something embarrassing. I've done it ;-)

I would much rather use email and attachments.

Doctor's offices are the worst. They want detailed health histories, but act like their email is a state secret. Often one of the workers will give me their own private email so I can transmit the info to them to download at work!!

That is wrong on so many levels. The worker is usually glad to assist when they see the lengthy history they would need to type in detail that could be copy/pasted and accuracy increased.

Forms sent by offices to be filled out should be able to be completed online and returned as well. This would eliminate the need for a number of faxes.

For HIPAA, patient information in an email must be encrypted, meaning that you have the hassle of a password. Not so for a fax.

I have a daughter with many medical problems that constantly needed to fax stuff to her doctors. I had a good fax program (MightyFax) on my computer that was fantastic but when I switched to Windows 7 it was never updated to be used with the new operating system. Now I can't use it.

Had a conversation with a financial business about this recently (they wanted me to fax them a document). Their reasoning was that email traveled over the (shudder) internet while faxes went via the phone lines, everyone knows the phone lines are secure but the internet is full of lurking danger. How do you reason with this kind of logic?

One acronym. HIPPA.
Doctors can not email medical information.

Unless you have the capability for an electronic signature an actual fax is often required for a document that needs a signature. I don't see anything in this article that addresses how to get away from that. Not everyone has a tablet with the feature for a poorly done signature.

Don't forget the field of Medicine. Hospitals still rely on faxes from doctors' offices for patient orders. In this case errors in fax transmissions and handling can be life-or-death to the patients.

Speaking of HIPPA (previous comment), it's hard to believe that faxes are even allowed considering all the compromising issues you mention in your article.

I agree with all you commented on, Bob. However....on very rare occasions....I am required to fax a document bearing my signature. On those occasions (which may happen once over a year or two) I just stop by our local Office Depot store and they fax it for me.

Yes, Bert's comment about HIPPAA is correct. Also, mist physician's offices are managed by people that are STILL (in 2014!) computer "challenged"! The FAX is simple enough for them to use, so it will live on! And K.Mayberry's comment is absolutely correct, also!

I think one of the contributing factors is that the all-in-one machines have the fax built in. I pesonally dropped my land line and can't fax anymore, at least in the traditional sense. Haven't missed it one bit.

Old habits and traditions die hard, long after their reasons for being started in the first place.

Merry Chrisrmas Bob. Thanks for your newsletter, like the jelly club, it's a gift that keeps giving all year long.

The problem truly is with HIPAA and other security issues. I have to use a very costly service for e-faxing because the ones that were less expensive wouldn't sign a HIPAA agreement. So, most of our faxes from labs, Drs, and other health agencies still go to a multi-function machine that includes faxes. Doing intra-site emails are easy, but doing secure email across different companies are still not as easy as it should be.

Yes, encryption is there. I use it when sending to specific individuals. But finding a standardized encryption system that Lab A can send to Dr. B, Therapy Agency C, and Home Health Agency D is very difficult. Then, the Home Health Agency has to share that same info with the other three doctors who are caring for that patient. There simply is not a standardized mechanism-- other than faxing. Trust me, I would love to forever rid myself of fax machines and printers. I think the technology is available, it's standardization that is lacking.

Bob - Faxes are still used by some service persons when the work they do requires a printed form to be signed and then be sent immediately to the service provider's billing department. Yes, if the office where the work was done has a scanner it could be scanned and e-mailed, but the availability of a scanner is inconsistent and it would require extra involvement of the customer's people. When all is said and done, a Fax in this situation is the best solution.

How secure is it when emailing confidential information or e-faxing confidential information? Wouldn't emailing or e-faxing with or without attachments of sensitive information be potentially intercepted by a hacker during transit? One of the reasons I still own a fax machine (or a MFP) is because of my concern for security. Any time I have to submit personal & confidential data to someone, I prefer using the fax machine, assuming, however inaccurate, that the doctor or lawyer or bank maintains secure methods. I would also assume those places would be held liable if personal data was stolen at their end. I understand all the reasons to update technology but am I wrong about the security?

We've been using WinFax since it came out in 1990. We still used a mechanical fax machine to send hard copy (rather than scanning it) but all electronically-generated documents were sent using our computer and WinFax. All received faxes, of course, came into the computer directly.

However, we switched early this year to using an outside provider to receive and send faxes. WinFax hasn't been updated in years and just doesn't work with all of the incoming faxes we get. I'm guessing that the standards have changed over the years. As a result, we now send and receive our faxes by email.

But we still have our old mechanical fax machine for those rare occasions when its just easier to feed paper into the input hopper!

I have recently had experiences where financial institution and medical institutions would accept a fax of a signed document but not a scanned and email document.

Also, Sony and a few others have gone back to using fax since all the hacking of their emails.

Someday faxes will go away.

I deal with the US CIS. They DO have email. The CIS Service Centers have a "premium processing" unit. You pay $1225 extra, and get 15 day processing of your petition (only for certain types). When the CIS wants to send you a notification requesting additional documentation on a petition, then the fax. Even though they collect an email address on the premium request form -- all requests for additional evidence go by fax (unless you fail to provide a fax number, then they snail mail it). You may respond by physical delivery or by fax. And NOT by email. The only reason they use email is to confirm receipt and approval (and the notices are not "valid" for anything, you must wait for printed notices to arrive physically). This is quite frustrating.

Also re encryption, for medical records: I don't understand why password protection of the attached records (in a pdf format) wouldn't work. That could be mailed to the physician's office to permit them to open the emailed pdf document.

MightyFax appears to be available for Windows 7.

I often paste a scanned image of my signature into Word docs, or into a PDF file, and send by email.
I've sent signed letters to my bank and broker via email and via their website's "message" scheme.

When will some hacker do us the favor of intercepting fax transmissions?

I think one reason we have so much difficulty with govt. departments and such over fax and email comms is that they are cunningly covering their asses and refusing to put anything in print that they don't have to.

Here in Aus. it's glaringly obvious they much prefer telephone comms which impose much inconvenience on the customer getting through to the right person and leave you with no record of the conversation.

Standing up for hard copy does little good as after much delay you're likely to finally get merely pages of impertinent bureaucratic-code waffle.

It is literally a war we are constantly having with our own govts who are preying on us in fact. Having a fax machine is sometimes a useful extra weapon one can bring into action to defeat them.

Recently, for instance, I was unable to contact via their sole contact phone number as the 'on holds' were apparently of the order of half an hour or so and there was no email address provided and no web contact.

So I faxed them. And wrote at the bottom "You've been contacted, informed, please acknowledge receipt." and I sent it again and again until I did get an ack. Which took some time.

Regarding signatures, I keep a jpeg of my signature that I can paste into an editable document and resize as needed. I then save that document as a pdf and attach it to an email. I suppose it could also be faxed as well.

I have my own company (run out of my house), but I will not give a fax number, because I don't want my phone ringing at all hours of the night. My past experience with faxes is that the vast majority are junk advertising.