I’ll admit, I’m pretty frustrated right now lol. me and my doctor have been trying to submit a referral to a specialist but for the last several weeks, when i call them, they still haven’t gotten it yet. they told me it’s because they only have one fax machine so it refuses any incoming faxes if it’s in the middle of printing a different one.
my problem is, why haven’t we come up with a more modern and secure way of sending medical files?!?! am i crazy for thinking this is a super unprofessional and unnecessary barrier to care?
luckily I’m mobile enough to drive a physical copy to their location, but not everybody who needs to see this type of doctor can do that, nor should they have to.
it’s generally harder to fax to a wrong number, have that actually hit a fax machine, and have it print than to accidentally email the wrong person or something. There are things that could be implemented into certain systems to only send to certain addresses, etc., but that information also exists in multiple places that can be accessed as well. For a fax, the message exists on the sender’s side (physical if any, machine memory possibly), receiver’s side (same), and briefly on the wire. This is opposed to hard drive, cloud, etc. where it is always vulnerable.