Documo Survey Reveals 88% of Healthcare Practitioners Say Fax Delays Continue to Impact Patient Care
Despite decades of digital innovation, the healthcare industry’s heavy dependence on fax machines remains a stubborn bottleneck for clinical and administrative efficiency. A new national survey released by Documo, a leader in secure cloud fax and intelligent document processing (IDP), reveals that fax-related delays continue to compromise patient care, waste staff time, and erode trust in healthcare communication systems.
The report, titled “Stuck in the Fax Lane,” exposes a clear disconnect between healthcare’s growing investments in automation and the real-world challenges clinicians face daily. While most hospitals and healthcare organizations are investing in interoperability and AI-driven automation, the persistence of outdated fax workflows continues to slow down critical information exchange — affecting everything from care coordination to compliance.
Fax Still Dominates Healthcare Communication
According to Documo’s findings, 35% of inbound documents to hospitals and healthcare facilities still arrive via fax. For larger organizations with higher volumes, that figure exceeds 45%. Despite the rapid evolution of digital health technologies — from electronic health records (EHRs) to AI-based data exchange platforms — fax remains deeply embedded in healthcare’s operational DNA.
The problem, however, is not merely technological nostalgia. It’s operational risk. The survey found that 52% of faxes still require manual intervention and processing by staff, while 44% are labeled as time-sensitive. That means nearly half of all faxed documents entering healthcare systems need immediate attention — and yet they’re often delayed, misrouted, or handled through error-prone manual processes.
“Reducing the signal-to-noise ratio issues in healthcare communications is critical to drive administrative efficiency and, more importantly, patient outcomes,” said Denis Whelan, CEO of Documo. “At Documo, we’re committed to making healthcare workflows secure, simple, and interoperable.”
Survey Methodology and Respondent Profile
The national survey captured insights from over 100 professionals across hospitals, clinics, ambulatory care centers, nursing facilities, residential treatment centers, healthcare agencies, and surgical centers. Participants included administrators, health information management specialists, and IT professionals directly responsible for workflow design, intake and routing management, and compliance auditing.
These respondents represent the individuals most intimately familiar with healthcare’s document workflows — those who experience the tension between outdated fax systems and the promise of automation on a daily basis.
Fax Delays Directly Impact Patient Care
Perhaps the most alarming finding is that fax-related delays are not simply administrative nuisances — they directly affect patient care. The report highlights that when faxes are delayed or misrouted, patients are often treated with incomplete information, have their appointments rescheduled, or must wait longer for approvals or results. These lapses can lead to misdiagnoses, incorrect prescriptions, and compliance breaches.
According to the survey, 58% of respondents said that fax-related delays often impact care quality, particularly among organizations with high fax volumes or low routing confidence. The documents most frequently affected include claims, intake forms, medication records, and prior authorizations — all critical for timely patient care and billing accuracy.
This dependency on faxing, combined with manual errors, is creating a dangerous gap between administrative workflows and clinical realities.
Automation Confidence Correlates With Workflow Efficiency
The report also establishes a strong link between automation confidence and operational performance. Among surveyed organizations, only 29% reported that their workflows are fully automated. Yet, those with higher levels of automation consistently reported greater routing confidence and fewer delays.
In contrast, organizations relying heavily on manual processes reported significantly higher instances of time loss, tracking errors, and staff frustration. The survey’s data suggest that automation is not merely a convenience — it’s a foundation for safe, compliant, and efficient document management.
Simply put, the most confident teams are the most automated teams.
AI Adoption Barriers Persist Despite Strong Interest
The majority of healthcare organizations — between 75% and 89% — are already investing in automation, interoperability, or intelligent document processing (IDP). However, the report highlights several key challenges that continue to limit progress:
- Cost: 44% cite financial constraints as a major barrier to adoption.
- Security concerns: 43% worry about compliance risks and data breaches.
- Integration complexity: 37% struggle to connect new automation tools with legacy EHR systems.
The survey found that trust in AI tools is closely tied to their integration quality and ability to provide accurate, contextual clinical data. High-confidence organizations are those that have already integrated automation tools deeply into their workflows — and are now pushing ahead with more advanced IDP features like intelligent routing, document summarization, and patient data matching.
As the report states, “AI cannot be bolted onto a broken system.” Instead, it must be built on a foundation of clean, interoperable, and intelligent document processes.
Fixing Fax as a Gateway to Digital Transformation
One of the most pragmatic insights from the Documo survey is that fixing fax could serve as a gateway to broader digital transformation in healthcare. Since fax remains a central workflow touchpoint, improving its speed, routing accuracy, and interoperability with EHR systems can yield immediate, measurable benefits.
Respondents identified compliance, patient safety, and claims accuracy as top organizational priorities — all areas heavily influenced by fax reliability. Workflow improvements tied to these outcomes tend to receive stronger executive buy-in and budgetary support, making them ideal starting points for digital modernization.
AI-powered fax solutions that integrate document identification, patient matching, and intelligent summarization are already viewed as high-value investments. By eliminating the need for manual review and routing, these solutions reduce delays, improve compliance tracking, and ultimately contribute to better patient outcomes.
Operational Gaps Between Hospitals and Other Facilities
The survey also revealed significant differences between hospitals and other types of healthcare organizations such as ambulatory clinics, residential facilities, and healthcare agencies.
- Routing Confidence: Hospitals demonstrated greater routing confidence (81%) than clinics (56%) or residential facilities (51%).
- Claim Delays: Hospitals reported an average of 59 fax-related claim delays per year, nearly double that of residential or agency settings.
- Manual Review: Clinics manually reviewed 61% of faxes, compared to 50% at hospitals.
- Time-Sensitive Faxes: Clinics (56%) and residential facilities (51%) handled more time-sensitive faxes than hospitals (43%).
Non-hospital organizations were also more likely to split multi-page faxes, creating additional opportunities for misrouting and delay.
These disparities underscore the need for context-specific automation strategies that address the unique document handling challenges across healthcare settings.
Industry Endorsement of Documo’s Cloud Fax and IDP Platform
A senior operations director from a global behavioral health company praised Documo’s platform for delivering secure, compliant document transmission without the burden of traditional fax hardware.
“Documo delivers on its core promise: secure, compliant document transmission without requiring physical fax machines,” the executive said. “It’s reliable for our day-to-day needs, and the platform is simple enough that most users can get up and running with minimal training. The audit trail and delivery confirmations add a layer of confidence, especially when working with sensitive documents.”
This endorsement highlights how modern, cloud-based fax solutions — when combined with intelligent document processing — can offer tangible, immediate value to healthcare providers struggling with outdated systems.
