Laserfiche Extinguishes Disaster Recovery Worries
For Multi-Med medical billing company, Laserfiche protects their most business-critical information
October 6th, 2008 Comment on this articleWhen designing a disaster recovery strategy, business owners usually plan for blackouts, natural disasters, server failure and theft. But there are some catastrophes—such as an arsonist attempting to burn down the office building—that probably don’t immediately spring to mind. MultiMed, an industry-leading emergency medical services billing company located in Baldwinsville, NY, was faced with such a threat in August 2007 when a three-alarm fire nearly engulfed their office complex. Fortunately, MultiMed had taken the right disaster preparedness measures, building a Laserfiche-powered recovery plan to ensure business continuity, come what may.
Bill Long, MultiMed’s CEO, recalls his first thoughts upon hearing the news: “Of course, my first concern was my staff’s safety. But after I learned everyone was out of the building, I started thinking about what we’d need to do to get back up and running. I wasn’t in panic mode at all, thanks to of our disaster recovery plan. “
The foundation of MultiMed’s disaster recovery plan is their Laserfiche digital document management system. MultiMed staff immediately scans all incoming paperwork into the Laserfiche repository, where it’s automatically indexed and securely archived. Routinely scheduled in-house and off-site backups preserve documents’ integrity and ensure their future accessibility. “There’s nothing more important to us than making sure our clients feel safe with their information in our hands,” Long says.
That information includes pre-hospital care reports, checks and explanation of benefits (EOB) forms, so MultiMed must focus on protecting patient privacy, in addition to providing their clients with peace of mind. “It’s not just for compliance purposes,” Long explains. “From a moral standpoint, it’s the right thing to do.”
While Laserfiche has ably addressed the company’s disaster recovery concerns, MultiMed staff had realized the benefits of Laserfiche long before the fire. The company’s efficiency gains have been especially dramatic: Long estimates that since implementing Laserfiche, MultiMed has increased efficiency by 20% while controlling labor costs and dramatically reducing other overhead costs.
Says Long, “For any business, the benefits of going paperless are easy to see. There’s no more getting up, walking to a file cabinet, looking for a file and bringing it back to the desk when a client calls. We can bring up all our information instantaneously.”
Many medical billing companies have accelerated collections with Laserfiche, and MultiMed is no exception. Whenever a supporting document enters the Laserfiche repository, Laserfiche Quick Fields™ automatically files it to the appropriate folder, either by reading a bar code or by recognizing particular text printed on the document. The result? All documentation relating to each claim resides in the same folder, so staff can access whatever information they need in order to process a claim, whenever they need it.
Laserfiche’s integration with MultiMed’s primary billing software makes accessing information even easier. Staff employ a dual-screen setup—one monitor displays their primary software, the other shows the Laserfiche repository. Bringing up a pre-hospital care report in the primary software instantly retrieves all supporting documents from Laserfiche, then displays them side-by-side with the billing application. In addition, Laserfiche automatically assigns metadata to all future associated documents originating from the billing application, enabling staff to locate documents in a number of different ways.
Still, all of these enhancements would be for naught if MultiMed was caught without a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.
“We did an event synopsis after the fire,” Long explains. “We saw that even if the building had been completely leveled, all of our information would have been backed up, right to the minute of the event. We could have been back up and running within a day, two at the most.”
When asked to speculate on how long it might take to recover if the worst happened and MultiMed was without its Laserfiche system, Long answers flatly, “I don’t know if we would ever be back in business.”
Crisis averted, Long is beginning to think about additional ways Laserfiche could help with disaster recovery—specifically, if such a disaster were to occur at one of his employees’ homes.
“I’d like to offer all employees their own personal folder in the company Laserfiche repository,” he says. “That way, they could preserve all their own vital documents if something should ever happen in their personal lives. It would be a great added perk.”
Future plans aside, Long appreciates the peace of mind that Laserfiche offers every day. “We’re in the medical field, but every business has shared concerns, and similar documents to protect—invoices, HR files. It’s important to be prepared for anything. Laserfiche’s disaster recovery features have been like insurance—you hope you never need to use it, but if anything does happen, boy, are you glad you’ve got it.”