Ridiculous for paying for stamps to mail charts q week

[nurse_jess]

I work in a home health agency as a lvn and every week I must mail out my charts which bulk up and need to always put about 4 stamps for an envelope every week. Office is 40 mins from where I live. Not an option for faxing or emailing. I heard a year ago they use to send out prepaid envelopes but that people abused it! What's your guys thoughts?

[morte, LPN, LVN]

I was thinking about this, is it the use of a PUBLIC fax that would be the origination of that thought? I don't know the tech. behind the machine, is the image stored in some fashion?

We provide postage-paid envelopes for our nurses. There are also fax machines in most private duty patients homes and the nurses who do intermittent visits can be given a fax machine for their home if they so choose. I have never heard of faxing being considered a HIPAA violation- that's how the vast majority of our communication with outside providers is done. We fax the 485 to the MD for signature, they fax it back. If there are new orders, the clinic faxes them to us.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

I was thinking about this, is it the use of a PUBLIC fax that would be the origination of that thought? I don't know the tech. behind the machine, is the image stored in some fashion?

Perhaps. I am not savvy on the technology of the fax machine. It kind of baffles me when I think about it.

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

Some fax machines store images just like many multifunctional copier/printers and copiers. I was taught using machines such as in office max could be an issue

[brillohead, ADN, RN]

My agency (private duty) provides self-addressed, stamped manila envelopes. The last nurse for the week puts all the paperwork for the whole week into an envelope and drops it in a mailbox.