NY Imaging Specialists + ScriptSender

Creating Shareable Data

Information is transmitted as live data, not a pdf or image file. “There is always this aha moment when customers realize we aren’t just a pdf printer that allows a referring physician to print a referral to them,” said Chris Craft, CEO of ScriptSender. “We actually capture the real postscript data from that print and insert the data directly into their system. It is far more than fax replacement. It is information sharing, interoperability, integration in seconds—with any EMR, RIS, or PACS.”

Digitizing the data ensures consistent information is used across any workflow or third-party application in the practice, such as insurance verification, clinical decision support, or prior authorization. “This isn’t another electronic fax tool,” said Wintz. “Those systems are not made for clinical settings.” Notes, lab reports, an entire patient folder, anything can be securely transmitted directly to NYIS in seconds.

A Growing Referrer Base

NYIS sought out the ScriptSender solution when its referrer base started to grow. Part of a larger oncology and hematology center called New York Cancer and Blood Specialists, the imaging practice was born out of a need to provide PET-CT services in-house. When its reputation for providing quality imaging began to spread, physicians outside of the practice started to refer patients there.

“The question became—how do we ingest these orders?” said Wintz. “How do we take in external referrals in a timely manner, not only to complete the patient scan but also to make sure everything is accurate and that the patient experience is preserved? Because this isn’t just ten orders. We’re doing 1300-1400 orders a week.”

Data may be accurate, complete, and digital in one practice, but when collaboration with other clinicians is required, the data has to be shareable and secure. The standard solution—building a technology bridge between platforms, like HL7 or a VPN, is expensive and time-consuming. “Not every referring physician has the resources to build out an HL7 connection. What everyone can do is print,” Wintz explained. “ScriptSender was the ideal solution for us.”

The ScriptSender team was ready to help NYIS’ referring community. “We went to referrers that were willing to adopt this new method of faster and more reliable collaboration,” Wintz said. “Some referrers don’t have a dedicated I.T. team, but everyone has the ability to print. The ScriptSender professionals were all-in. They helped with set-up and were able to get our referrers up-and-running in minutes. The speed with which we can acquire information from our ScriptSender-enabled referrers is just so much faster. If we need a change order, for example, it’s so much simpler.”

Referring providers look for quality imaging and fast turnaround times, and ScriptSender enables NYIS to go even further. More accurate collaboration, more immediate data access, more convenience for patients—these are the differentiators that support referral retention.

Freedom for the Front Desk

With a growing practice, not to mention high standards for patient care, the scheduling team at NYIS has to function seamlessly. Faxing forces highly skilled professionals to spend their time filing papers, and it significantly degrades collaboration and, by extension, patient care. Fax workflows, whether electronic fax or not, still rely on manual data entry. With ScriptSender, inefficient workflows can now be fully automated with improved reliability.

“Faxes don’t always come through, and there are toner issues, and machines stop working,” Wintz explained. “With ScriptSender, our scheduling team is highly efficient. With everything digitized, we can track each order. We can see which order came through and whether it’s been scheduled. We can see which orders are completed. It helps the organization of the whole practice.”