Five steps for health professionals to switch to online faxing

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Doctors, medical professionals, and others in the healthcare industry are often required to send and receive documents via fax. They have the additional burden of ensuring that their transmissions are in compliance with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).  Fortunately, these busy professionals can lighten the load by switching to a HIPAA compliant online fax service.

HIPAA compliant online fax services provide a secure, convenient, and efficient way to fax documents. Confirmations of completed faxes are sent via email. If a fax needs to be resent, it doesn’t need to be rescanned—just resent with a click.  Faxes can be saved, downloaded, and securely stored in the cloud. Here is an easy 5-step process to follow to switch to an online faxing service.

Online Fax for Medical Professionals

Step-By-Step Guide:

  1. If you don’t already have one, invest in a good document scanner, such as such as a Fujitsu ScanSnap or Neat. These scanners can scan long documents in minutes and convert them into electronic files that can then be faxed online.
  2. Choose an online fax service that is compatible with the needs of your practice. Here are some key criteria to consider when choosing a service:
    • HIPAA compliance. Begin the process of selecting a service by considering only those that are in compliance with the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This criterion will narrow the field.
    • Business Associate Agreement. A Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is a contract between a HIPAA covered entity – any organization or business that handles personal health information – and a business associate. The BAA ensures that the business associate is accountable for protecting the personal health information it is handling or transmitting. While several online fax service providers provide HIPAA-compliant services, only some enter into a BAA. If you’re a business that handles patient documents, you can use a provider that won’t sign a BAA. However, if you do so, make sure you understand what safeguards are in place to ensure that the fax provider is indeed adhering to HIPAA regulations. For more information, see “HIPAA Compliance and Business Associate Agreements.”
    • Number of pages to be faxed. Consider how many pages you might send and receive in a month. This will determine what size plan you need.
    • Number of people who will need access. Decide how many people in your office will need access to your online fax service. The number of users allowed access by different service plans can vary from 5 to 30 to an unlimited number.
    • Smartphone accessibility. Consider whether fax service users in your office will want or need to be able to send and receive faxes via Smartphone. Some online fax services offer dedicated Smartphone apps, while others do not.

To find the right online fax service for your needs, use FaxCompare’s dynamic tool to filter the options by features (like HIPAA compliance) and pricing and view a custom comparison of the best option.

  1. Sign up for a free trial. Almost all services offer a free trial period, so take the time to test the service out right after signing up to make sure you like the interface and features.
  2. Once you’ve decide you’re happy with the service, either call to initiate the process of porting your old fax number to the new service; or if you don’t care about preserving an old number, just use the one that you selected when you signed up for the free trial.
  3. Get rid of that cumbersome fax machine taking up space in your office. You can use a recycling location finder to find a way to properly get rid of your old fax machine. Alternately, Best Buy, Office Depot, and Staples accept machines for recycling in their stores.

It’s really that easy. Once you have made the switch to an online faxing, your only regret will be that you didn’t do it sooner!

Five steps for lawyers to switch to online faxing

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Lawyers are routinely required to send and receive documents via fax. Mercifully, faxing no longer has to involve painstakingly printing out documents and waiting by the fax machine until all the pages are successfully transmitted. Instead, online faxing services provide a secure, convenient, and efficient way to fax important documents. Confirmations of completed faxes are sent via email. If a fax needs to be resent, it doesn’t need to be rescanned, just resent with a click.  Not only are online faxing services more user-friendly, they are also more eco-friendly. No more reams of paper and toxic toner.  No more printing out digital files just to fax or save them. Faxes can be saved, downloaded, and securely stored in the cloud. Many law offices have already made the switch. If yours is not one of them, here is an easy 5-step process to follow to switch to an online service.

online fax for lawyers

 

  1. If you don’t already have one, invest in a good document scanner, such as such as a Fujitsu ScanSnap or Neat. These scanners can scan long documents in minutes and convert them into electronic files that can then be faxed online.
  1. Choose an online fax service that is compatible with the needs of your practice. Here are some key criteria to consider when choosing a service:
    • Number of pages to be faxed. Consider how many pages you might send and receive in a month. This will determine what size plan you need.
    • Number of people who will need access. Decide how many people in your office will need access to your online fax service. The number of users allowed access by different service plans can vary from 5 to 30 to an unlimited number.
    • Smartphone accessibility. Consider whether fax service users in your office will want or need to be able to send and receive faxes via Smartphone. Some online fax services offer dedicated Smartphone apps, while others do not.
    • HIPAA compliance. Determine whether you need a fax service that is HIPAA compliant. (Law offices can be subject to HIPAA regulations due to interactions with the medical industry.)

To find the right online fax service for your needs, use FaxCompare’s dynamic tool to filter the options by features and pricing and view a custom comparison of the best option.

  1. Sign up for a free trial. Almost all services offer a free trial period, so take the time to test the service out right after signing up to make sure you like the interface and features.
  2. Once you’ve decide you’re happy with the service, either call to initiate the process of porting your old fax number to the new service; or if you don’t care about preserving an old number, just use the one that you selected when you signed up for the free trial. For additional guidance, here is our step by step guide to porting your number into an online fax service.
  3. Get rid of that cumbersome fax machine taking up space in your office. You can use a recycling location finder to find a way to properly get rid of your old fax machine. Alternately, Best Buy, Office Depot, and Staples accept machines for recycling in their stores.

It’s really that easy. Once you have made the switch to an online fax service, your only regret will be that you didn’t do it sooner!

How Much Paper Can Digital Services Save?

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There are plenty of reasons to replace paper with digital services, from security to efficiency, but one that’s often overlooked is the environmental impact.

It goes without saying that digital services like email, cloud storage, and online faxing save paper, since they don’t require any. But just how much paper is saved by using those services?

According to some estimates, the average office discards about 350 pounds of paper each year, per employee.

Take faxing, one paper-intensive office tool, as an example. If you have a physical fax machine that’s printing faxes out – which are later tossed – that adds up, even for a small business. If you have 25 people in your office, your company is using more than 8,700 pounds of paper per year.

Google Faxing estimates that online faxing can save roughly one tree per year, and further reduce paper use beyond your initial fax since all sending, editing, and receiving can be done on your computer or mobile device.

If it’s difficult to imagine just how much paper that adds up to, MyFax provides some more numbers on how environmentally intensive general office paper use can be:

  • In the US, annual office paper consumption is enough to build a 10-foot-high wall that’s 6,815 miles long. That’s more than the distance from New York to Tokyo.
  • Producing one ton of paper (200,000 sheets) requires 20,312 gallons (76,889 liters) of water. In the UK alone, 12.5 million tons of paper was consumed in 2005.
  • Reducing paper use by 10% in the US alone would prevent the emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases — the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road.

Faxing is by no means the only digital solution in offices these days; another is eSigning. Because it allows you to sign and send documents online, eSigning lets you skip printing out additional paper.

eSignature provider DocuSign says that its electronic signature service has reduced approximately 837 tons of paper – or more than 14,000 trees – since its founding in 2003.

Switching to online forms, filing, and reports is also an effective way to cut paper use. According to an InformIT report, the Bank of America cut its paper consumption by 25% in part by using online forms and reports. And Yale University recently on a paper-saving initiative in 2013, encouraging faculty, staff, and students alike to share information via programs like PowerPoint instead of handouts, by distributing meeting materials electronically, and by using message programs or emails to exchange information. Yale estimates that before it took on the paperless initiative, it consumed 211,033 reams of paper in one fiscal year, or about 12,662 trees worth of paper. When the university started going paperless, it was able to cut that by 2.4%, with a long-term goal to cut paper consumption by 25%.

With the rise of cloud storage, filing and sharing documents without paper is another way to cut paper use and save money. Storing physical documents costs money – for the storage system and the space – and may mean higher labor costs, too. Using cloud storage like Dropbox can eliminate those costs, and save a significant amount of paper.

It goes without saying that most people communicate with email instead of snail mail nowadays, but when it comes to marketing, there’s still a lot of direct mail being sent. Email marketing programs like Campaign Monitor not only save paper, they have a much higher open rate than direct mail – an average of 22.8%, compared with 4% for physical mail.

Finally, internal notes, memos, and copies can be eliminated through to-do lists and note-taking apps like Evernote and Trello. Both programs allow you to message colleagues and share documents online, which means you don’t have to print out clips you want to share.

The Future of Faxing

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SRFax logoMike Charalambous is the CEO of SRFax, a Canadian-based Internet fax service provider that provides services in the U.S. and Canada. FaxCompare Kate Harrington sat down with him to talk about the fax industry and the future of Internet faxing.

FaxCompare: Roughly how many new subscribers do you see each month?

SRFax: On average we see about 1,000 new subscribers each month. We’re not a huge company – if you look at a company
like one of j2’s [Global, owner of eFax and MetroFax], they probably get 50,000 new subscribers a month. I think the faxing industry is improving, and we’ve seen great growth. Consultants are, for the first time, saying that demand for online faxing service is now surpassing in-house fax service.

And that’s amazing, because the enterprise market is the biggest fax user, and most of them have in-house servers because they have seen that as more secure and cost effective. But the forecast for the next three to five years is that the online fax market will surpass the server-based market in revenue. That’s exciting for us.

FAF: Have you seen certain industries embracing Internet faxing?

SRFax: I think the biggest growth market has been the medical industry. We’ve got a few electronic medical records companies that have integrated their software with our software. On the whole, healthcare, finance, and legal are heavy users of online faxing.

FAF: What feature requests do you most often hear from customers?

SRFax: I think portability – being able to bring your number with you when you switch providers – is the biggest one, which we do supply. And then there’s a demand for an app. With smartphones today you can do just about anything, and faxing is no exception. If I had to say one of the things we need to have – and are in the process of developing – it’s a smartphone app.

Another big request, which we do offer, is HIPAA compliance. We are also one of the few online fax companies that will sign a business associate agreement.

FAF: What business size do you see the most online fax demand come from?

SRFax: It’s really split in two – we have a lot of customers with smaller, home-based businesses who are buying the Home 200-page plan. Then on the business side, the majority of customers are well over the 2,500-page plan. About 10-15% of our customers buy plans in the middle from 800-2,500 pages per month. The rest are either small business owners or large corporations that need well over that amount.

FAF: What do people not know about the fax industry?

SRFax: There’s been a lot of growth in this industry in IP faxing. But I don’t think it has staying power. Faxes are transmitted by sound, and that Internet phone line doesn’t always work well for that. If you get any noise interference on the line, it’s lethal for faxing. The general public and even some businesses don’t understand that an Internet phone line doesn’t work that well. People will go to VoIP-based systems, it doesn’t work, and they end up coming to us.

FAF: What’s the most interesting thing that’s happening now in the fax industry?

SRFax: That the industry is moving toward cloud-based services. A lot of people don’t know that Internet faxing or cloud-based services exist, and it’s exciting to see that trend reversing and people looking for services like ours, as opposed to looking for hardware or legacy service.

People have been predicting that the fax will die for a long time, but I don’t see that happening. There are too many industries that need it – there would have to be a major shift in thinking across many industries for faxing to start tapering off.

I think another thing to be aware of is that for cloud-based services, the waters have been muddied badly over the last five or six years. When we started 10 years ago, there were only six or seven providers. Today there’s probably 50. But of those 50, half of them have terrible customer service and aren’t reliable. Customers sign up with a cheap service, have a bad experience, and end up thinking the entire industry is bad. But if they’re serious about remaining with a cloud-based service, they’ll get to a good provider.

Conclusion

Whether you’ve got a home office or are building a business that will have to scale up rapidly, faxing is an important tool. Now that faxing has been freed from the fax machine, it can provide an easy, secure, and mobile way to send and receive documents. And as with many industries, the growth of cloud-based technologies will only help Internet faxing grow and become more feature-rich.

The 10 Best iOS Health and Medical Apps

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Health and Medical AppsTrying to find the best apps on the iTunes store can be extremely challenging. You can search, sort by category and list by most popular, but unless you know exactly what you are searching for, none of these filters does a very good job of surfacing the absolute best apps.

Although “best” is debatable, most people know when they are looking at an app that it is truly head and shoulders above the rest. For example, when you’re looking at an app, and it has thousands of 5 star reviews, very few 1 star reviews, and the negative reviews are typically related to personal experiences that probably don’t apply to most other people, it’s probably a very good app. Also, these apps are regularly updated and either free or fairly priced. Finally, these apps either have an abundance of features or simply do a small number of things extremely well.

The apps included in this list are from the iOS store’s “medical” or “health and fitness” categories, but it excludes fitness only apps, because that deserves its own category. Women’s health and pregnancy apps have a disproportionate share of this list, simply because there are more good apps in this category than the rest. However, with only a few exceptions that were basically unavoidable, the list includes only one app in each of the medical and healthcare areas that currently offer great apps.

Without further ado, here is the list (in no particular order):

  1. Baby Connect- Activity Logger (details & reviews)
  2. Pregnancy & Baby- What to Expect (details & reviews)
  3. Ovia Pregnancy Tracker and Baby Calendar (details & reviews)
  4. Eve by Glow- Sex, PMS & Period Tracker, Women’s Health App (details & reviews)
  5. GoodRx- Prescription Drug Prices, Coupons and Pill Identifier (details & reviews)
  6. Insight Timer- Meditation Timer (details & reviews)
  7. Sleep Cycle alarm clock(details & reviews)
  8. Instant Heart Rate- Heart Rate Monitor Free (details & reviews)
  9. WebMD – Trusted Health and Wellness Information (details & reviews)
  10. Smoke Free – Quit smoking now and stop for good (details & reviews)

1) Baby Connect- Activity Logger

  • Cost: $4.99Baby Connect
  • Download Link
  • Company’s Description of The App:
    • Baby Connect is the most comprehensive baby tracking application on the AppStore. It has graphical reports and trending charts, weekly averages, medicine, vaccine and growth tracking, timers, notifications, emails, .csv export, an easy to use interface, unlimited data, and it is the only application that allows you to exchange information in real time with your spouse, babysitter, nanny or daycare.
  • Feature Highlights:
    • Easily track feeding (bottle, nursing, solid food), diapers, sleep, activities, mood, milestones
    • Track sleep, BMs & wet diapers, feeding, pumping, nursing, medicine, weight,, height, head size, activities and more
    • Automatically synchronize data between accounts over the Internet
    • Display all entries on a graphical Timeline view.
    • Enter free-form notes
    • Upload child photo, indicate birthday, blood type and allergies
    • Track as many babies as you like, setup as many parents and caregivers as you like
    • Existing built-in descriptions can be customized, new descriptions can be added
    • Setup Push notifications
    • Send your gps location, display the location on a map
  • In-App Purchases:
    • $8.99/ month for Premium: Nannies, Small Home Daycares
    • $44.99/ month for Professional: Child Care Centers, Large Home Daycares
    • $89.99/ month for Enterprise: Business owners operating more than one Child Care Center
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 124 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 114
    • 4 star reviews: 8
    • 3 star reviews: 3
    • 2 star reviews: 0
    • 1 star reviews: 0
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 3,257 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 2,733
    • 4 star reviews: 314
    • 3 star reviews: 79
    • 2 star reviews: 48
    • 1 star reviews: 83
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • Aug 2, 2016: 5 star- Loves app and requested a few more specific features
    • July 30, 2016: 5 star- Highly recommends app; easy to use and share info with phone
    • July 29, 2016: 5 star- First time parent says app is “hands down the best.” Likes being able to sync between users. Gave update that they are now on baby #3 and it is still their go to baby app.
    • July 25, 2016: 5 star- Been using the app for four years with two daughters; tracks feedings and medicine; recommends to friends with kids
    • July 22, 2016: 5 star- Recommends for all new parents; awesome for keeping up with almost everything
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • June 28, 2016: 3 star- Diaper tracking is not accurate
    • June 23, 2016: 3 star- “It’s an ugly app but we live by it.”
    • June 10, 2016: 3 star- Loves the app, but is upset that people have to pay separately for the iPhone and iPad versions rather than having one comprehensive app that works on both.
  • Most common complaints:
    • No common complaints. Most people mention a desire for various specific features.

2) Pregnancy & Baby- What to Expect

  • Cost: FreeWhat to Expect
  • Download Link
  • Description: From the world’s most trusted pregnancy brand “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” our universal pregnancy and baby app for iPhone and iPad guides you through pregnancy day-by-day and week-by-week (even hour-by-hour!). Based on your due date, you’ll receive personalized content, the latest parenting news and health information, and access to a tight-knit community of other parents and moms-to-be like you. You’ll get brand new tools and support to help you prepare and feel in control every step of the way — helping you achieve a happy, healthy pregnancy. Once baby is born, you’ll get answers, advice and guidance as you navigate life as a new parent.
  • Features:
    • Personalized daily tracker shows your week and day of pregnancy, baby’s development measured in fruit sizes, and a countdown to your due date.
    • Emotional support in a personalized, daily feed with fresh curated content including pregnancy tips, reasons to smile every day, health news and passionate stories from real parents.
    • Beautiful, clear and informative week-by-week development info, helping you understand your changing body and the latest on baby’s development through each stage.
    • America’s favorite week-by-week pregnancy videos help you understand your changing body and the latest on baby’s development through each stage.
      Community photo sharing lets you connect with other moms in a whole new way — sharing photos, stories and advice in real-time, and arranging meet-ups with moms like you.
    • Find the right group for you based on your birth month, location, interest, medical condition, parenting style and more!
  • In-App Purchases: None
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 337 ratings
    • 5 star: 309
    • 4 star: 25
    • 3 star: 1
    • 2 star: 2
    • 1 star: 0
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 68,321 ratings
    • 5 star: 44,042
    • 4 star: 14,609
    • 3 star: 4,830
    • 2 star: 1,841
    • 1 star: 2,999
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “Great app”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “The description is accurate, so the suggestion is very useful”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “Most used pregnancy app! Love the weekly videos, talking on the community, all the information provided. Hands down, best pregnancy app!”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “I absolutely love this app, I use it everyday & this is my first pregnancy! It’s given me tons of excellent information. I highly suggest it! I never write reviews honestly but this one seriously deserves it!”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “I found the app to be very informative. Don’t have anything bad to say about this app.”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • August 4, 2016: 2 stars- Reviewer doesn’t like the person talking in the videos and wishes it had more of a spotlight on the baby.
  • Most common complaints:
    • No consistent complaints

3) Ovia Pregnancy Tracker and Baby Calendar

(too close to call between Ovia and What to Expect, so we listed them both)Ovia Pregnancy Tracker
  • Cost: Free
  • Download Link
  • Description: Your own daily timeline of articles and personalized feedback on your pregnancy. All your pregnancy questions answered, from “Is this normal?” to “Can I eat this?”.
  • Features:
    • Real-time alerts when your symptoms could be dangerous
    • Track your weight, sleep, moods, activity, and more
    • See your baby’s actual hand size
    • Quick lookups for food, symptoms, and medications
  • In-App Purchases: None
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 357 ratings
    • 5 star: 330
    • 4 star: 20
    • 3 star: 2
    • 2 star: 2
    • 1 star: 3
  • All time rating: 5 stars, 6,606 ratings
    • 5 star: 5,917
    • 4 star: 410
    • 3 star: 112
    • 2 star: 54
    • 1 star: 113
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 3, 2016: 5 stars- “Great app so far!!!”
    • August 3, 2016: 5 stars- “This app has been so helpful and easy to use. I highly recommend it”
    • August 3, 2016: 5 stars- “Great app!”
    • August 3, 2016: 5 stars- “I love using this app. Have already recommended to friends.”
    • August 2, 2016: 5 stars- “I’m on my second baby and I just wanted a simple way to track my nugget. I can customize since I’m not a first time mama and I love the handprint feature. I can track a lot but it doesn’t flood my homepage like Glow Nuture. And I’m ok without the community. Sometimes the dark stories can be overwhelming. And I love my baby list. Thanks for a super simple yet versatile app!”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • July 19, 2016: 1 star- States that they offer the “worst customer support,” because there is no way to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe button didn’t work and has emailed customer support ten times and gotten an automated response each time stating that the email address was removed, but she is still getting daily updates for her pregnancy, which no longer exists.
    • July 18, 2016: 1 star- App stopped working after recently updating it.
    • July 17, 2016: 1 star- “Widely based on inaccurate information. Also the forum is like the Wild West, you can be banned for no reason. I’ll stick to babycenter.”
    • July 24, 2016: 2 stars- “Articles aren’t very helpful. Videos are generic and community feature is terrible.”
    • July 30, 2016: 2 stars- “Worst pregnancy app I’ve used. Definitely will be deleting and finding a new one.”
  • Most common complaints:
    • No consistent complaints. Most people state that they really like it but mention a feature they would like it to have- but that feature is different for each reviewer.

4) Eve by Glow- Sex, PMS & Period Tracker, Women’s Health App

  • Cost: FreeEve By Glow
  • Download Link
  • Description: Eve by Glow (formerly Ruby by Glow) is a savvy health & sex app for women who want to take control of their sex lives. Eve helps women figure out many different dimensions of their health: birth control & contraception, ovulation & fertility, menstruation, cycle symptoms and trends. The only tracker that addresses sexual, menstrual, and reproductive health all-in-one, Eve is a comprehensive health app for sexually-active young women who want to own their cycles and feel good in bed.
  • Features:
    • Log to keep track of sex, moods & symptoms.
    • See your health data visualized in beautiful charts.
    • Identify trends and patterns unique to your body.
    • Compatible with the Health App for tracking Sleep, Steps, Walking+Running, Height, Weight, Date of Birth, Water, and of course, menstrual health (Menstruation, Sexual Activity, Spotting, BBT, Cervical Mucus).
    • Fastest and easiest way to to track your period.
    • Interactive staircase helps you see your cycle history in a whole new way.
    • Forecast your ovulation and upcoming period with period tracker predictions that get smarter over time.
    • Review past periods, menstrual cycles and ovulation dates to better understand your cycle & fertility.
    • Calendar views on period tracker show your next fertile window, ovulation day, upcoming period.
    • Community provides an extended friend group for discussing sex & health.
    • Trusted information about birth control & sex, powered by Bedsider.
    • Ask the community anything–nothing is off limits.
    • Premium Features (requires in app purchase)
      • Comparative Insights – “Is this normal?” Compare with millions of women.
      • Premium Content – Your next level sexual health savvy.
      • Private Messaging – It’s like passing notes, but better.
      • Custom Profile – Stand out from the rest.
      • Premium Support – No more lines for you. With Premium, you jump the queue!SUBSCRIPTION AND PRICING TERMS
        $7.99 for month-to-month
        $3.99/month for 1 year
        (subscription works across all Glow company apps!)
  • In-App Purchases:
    • Premium features available for $7.99 for month-to-month; or
    • $47.88 for 1 year
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 1,130 ratings
    • 5 star: 1,013
    • 4 star: 100
    • 3 star: 13
    • 2 star: 3
    • 1 star: 1
  • All time rating: 5 stars, 8,932 ratings
    • 5 star: 7,684
    • 4 star: 976
    • 3 star: 168
    • 2 star: 44
    • 1 star: 60
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 4, 2016: 4 star- “This has been super helpful for forgetful me”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Love it.!!”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “It helps you keep track of your period. Like it tells you based on the information you put in about your other period. It also has this log where you click on symptoms you are having and it gives you a few answers. This really is a Great choice.”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “I think the app is awesome. I really like all the quiz and activity you can do.”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- Says it is the best period tracker she has tried.
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • Jul 7, 2016: 1 star- “I got this app because it looked pretty nice, but after a few hours it started messing up. I deleted the app and since then my phone is acting weird. It keeps shutting off and I think it’s because of this app.”
    • July 6, 2016: 2 stars- “I seriously just bought a new pair of panties last week for $30 just found out that my period came Today! And it just so happens that I was wearing my new cute expensive panties today. I thought this app was supposed to track my period.”
    • July 21, 2016: 2 stars- Thinks the app is cool but offers too many features and doesn’t like the social element. Just wanted a period tracker. She wouldn’t spend money on the premium version.
    • August 3, 2016: 2 stars- Really likes the app, but wants the premium features but thinks the price is too expensive.
  • Most common complaints:
    • A few reviewers mentioned that it’s not 100% accurate predicting the start date of their period.

5) GoodRx- Prescription Drug Prices, Coupons and Pill Identifier

  • Cost: FreeGood Rx
  • Download Link
  • Description:
    • Find the lowest price on prescriptions right from your phone or iPad.
    • Our free, easy-to-use mobile apps feature:
      • Instant access to the lowest prices for prescription drugs at more than 75,000 pharmacies
      • Coupons and savings tips that can cut your prescription costs by 50% or more
      • Side effects, pharmacy hours and locations, pill images, and much more!
  • Features:
    • Every week we collect millions of prices and discounts from pharmacies, drug manufacturers and other sources. Here’s how you can use it to save:
      • Use GoodRx’s drug price search to compare prices (just like you do for travel or electronics on other sites) for your prescription at pharmacies near you. We don’t sell the medications, we tell you where you can get the best deal on them.
      • GoodRx will show you prices, coupons, discounts and savings tips for your prescription at pharmacies near you.
      • Download GoodRx’s iPhone or Android app to get drug prices and coupons on the go.
        • Instant access to the lowest prices for prescription drugs at more than 75,000 pharmacies
        • Coupons and savings tips that can cut your prescription costs by 50% or more
        • Side effects, pharmacy hours and locations, pill images, and much more!If you prefer, GoodRx can send you a discount savings card which you can keep in your wallet or purse.
      • Many folks have asked us how it’s possible that GoodRx can locate such huge savings. We can assure you that our prices are accurate and the discounts we find are based on contractual agreements. Every month, consumers save millions of dollars with GoodRx.
      • GoodRx is free for consumers, and we require no personal information to search drugs and receive discounts. We do not sell your personal health information to anyone. We make money from advertisements on our site and referral fees. This revenue enables us to continue to make the best, free product to help Americans afford the prescriptions they need.
  • In-App Purchases: None
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 746 ratings
    • 5 star reviews: 694
    • 4 star reviews: 29
    • 3 star reviews: 9
    • 2 star reviews: 1
    • 1 star reviews: 13
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 5,225 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 4,640
    • 4 star reviews: 289
    • 3 star reviews: 54
    • 2 star reviews: 26
    • 1 star reviews: 216
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 2, 2016: 5 star- User thanks GoodRx for making meds more affordable since they don’t have insurance. Gets three months of meds for less than 1/3 of previous cost of one month’s supply.
    • August 2, 2016: 5 star- User thank “whoever is responsible” for the app, because they’ve saved so much money and time price shopping with the app.
    • August 2, 2016: 5 star- Used app for the first time today and saved $50.
    • August 2, 2016: 5 star- “True money saver, no gimmicks just download and truly save.”
    • August 1, 2016: 5 star- Uses the app for every medicine purchase. Works in healthcare and uses the app to find best prices for patients. Says difference in price from one pharmacy to another is “incredible.”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • July 11, 2016: 1 star- “Hiding prices in Canada”
    • July 6, 2016: 1 star- “Waited 20 minutes for a prescription only to find out the price was $8.00 MORE than the app said. Pharmacist claimed its frequently wrong. I don’t get the good rating.”
    • June 19, 2016: 1 star- “Did not like”
    • June 10, 2016: 1 star- “Crash on almost every search”
  • Most common complaints:
    • Several people (although a relatively small % of reviewers) reported that the prices listed on the app or often wrong.
    • In order to get the benefit, you need to use a pharmacy that accepts the coupon. Some users have reported that many don’t.

6) Insight Timer- Meditation Timer

  • Cost: FreeInsight Meditation Timer
  • Download Link
  • Description: Insight Timer is the highest rated free meditation app on the App Store. More than 950,000 meditators call Insight Timer home.With beautiful Tibetan singing bowls and a dynamic worldwide community, Insight Timer is the fun and connected way to support your meditation practice. If you’re new to meditation you’ll find more than 2,000 free guided meditations and a supportive community to get started. If you’re an experienced meditator you’ll feel right at home with our beautiful Tibetan singing bowls and guided meditations by experienced teachers that you know and respect.
  • Features:
    • The most popular free meditation Timer on the App Store
    • 8 deeply peaceful bells recorded with the highest quality digital audio equipment making them crystal clear with extra long fade outs.
    • Mesmerizing Ambient sounds which play in the background for a more relaxing meditation session
    • 2,000 guided meditations from your favourite teachers including Eckhart Tolle, Pak Merta Ada, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield and many more.
    • 1,000+ discussion groups ranging from Buddhism to Sleeping patterns and Rumi poems to Addiction.
    • 2,000+ local meet-up groups for connecting with people locally and enhancing your meditation practice
    • 8 different activities including Meditation, Yoga, Tai Chi, Walking, Breathing, Chanting, Prayer, and Healing
    • Stats, Milestones, and Journal entries
  • In-App Purchases:
    • Bell collection: $2.99
    • Calm collection: $1.99
    • Inspire collection: $1.99
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 1,477 ratings
    • 5 star reviews: 1,322
    • 4 star reviews: 128
    • 3 star reviews: 16
    • 2 star reviews: 5
    • 1 star reviews: 6
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 12,333 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 10,224
    • 4 star reviews: 1,378
    • 3 star reviews: 224
    • 2 star reviews: 135
    • 1 star reviews: 372
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “Great must have app for meditators!”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- Says the app helps make the most out of meditation time. Loves the chime sounds, and says it’s “just like my singing bowl!”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “This is one of my favorite apps ever!” Uses it daily and recommends it to everyone, beginners and seasoned meditators alike.
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Great for silent mediation and improvements keep coming.”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Very user friendly. I use it every day.”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • July 24, 2016: 1 star: “Not a good app. They have made it into a dating app. Horrible updates made regularly that makes the app function less effectively.”
    • July 23, 2016: 1 star- “Today, after using this app for 3+ years, I could no longer post comments. After doing some research, testing, and analysis, I determined that I had been deliberately censored. No one spoke with me. No one contacted me to work out whatever problem they felt was there. I have no clue why this occurred. But it did…”
    • July 20, 2016: 1 star- “I hadn’t used the app in a while. Tried to use it today and find I need to register and login to get into the app at all. I was someplace with no net access making the app completely useless.” (Continues on about registration annoyances)
    • July 20, 2016: 1 star- Likes the apps in a lot of ways, but doesn’t like the fact that the app gives people gold (and other color) stars or the social media element.
    • July 14, 2016: 1 star- Bought the app in 2013, but skipped updates to avoid creating an account. That is no longer an option, and now wants a refund on the original purchase. Also doesn’t like the “onslaught of navigation screens.”
  • Most common complaints:
    • Most of the complaints are centered on the social media elements of the app. The complaintants don’t want to mix social media with their meditation.

7) Sleep Cycle alarm clock

  • Cost: FreeSleep Cycle Alarm
  • Download Link
  • Description:
    • Waking up made easy.
    • An intelligent alarm clock that analyzes your sleep and wakes you in the lightest sleep phase – the natural way to wake up feeling rested and relaxed.
    • As you sleep you go through different phases, ranging from deep sleep to light sleep. The phase you are in when your alarm goes off is critical for how tired you will feel when you wake up.
    • Since you move differently in bed during the different phases, Sleep Cycle can use the microphone or accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movements and determine which sleep phase you are in.
    • Sleep Cycle wakes you when you are in your lightest sleep phase.
    • Sleep Cycle was developed using proven sleep science and years of research and development.
  • Features
    • Included free with app
      • Sleep analysis with our patented sound analysis technology or if you prefer, the sensitive accelerometer in your iPhone
      • Detailed sleep statistics and sleep graphsFeatures:
      • Carefully selected alarm melodies
      • Snooze by shaking or double tapping the phone lightly
      • Fully integrated with Apple Health. Exchanges sleep analysis and heart rate
      • Customizable wake up window. From instant (regular alarm clock) up to 90 minutes
      • Background mode – set your alarm and exit Sleep Cycle – sleep analysis will continue in the background
      • Support for the M7 and M8 co-processor – measure your daily physical activity and see how it affects your Sleep Quality
      • Export sleep data to Excel for detailed analysis
    • Premium features available
      • Online backup – secure your data online to make sure it’s always with you
      • Long term trends – compare your sleep with the world
      • Sleep aid – helps you fall asleep faster
      • Sleep notes – see how events such as drinking coffee, eating too much or having a stressful day affect your sleep quality
      • Wake up mood – see how using Sleep Cycle affects your morning moods
      • Weather – see how weather affects your Sleep Quality
      • Heart rate monitor – measure your resting heart rate (RHR) every morning using the built-in camera in your device
      • Philips HUE light bulb support – simulate a natural sunrise to give you an even softer wake-up
  • In-App Purchases:
    • Premium subscription is $23.99/ year
  • Current version rating: 4.5 stars, 2,770 ratings
    • 5 star reviews: 2,232
    • 4 star reviews: 410
    • 3 star reviews: 44
    • 2 star reviews: 30
    • 1 star reviews: 54
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 97,058 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 73,678
    • 4 star reviews: 16,280
    • 3 star reviews: 3,072
    • 2 star reviews: 1,513
    • 1 star reviews: 2,515
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 4, 2016: 5 stars- “Really tells me what I need to sleep better.”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Highly recommend for you who feel like you don’t get enough sleep!”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Love it. The alarm really helps me wake up earlier and refreshed”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Great app!! I’ve used it every night for more than two years probably. Very reliable and it’s good just as an alarm even without all the cool sleep tracking features.”
    • August 4, 2016: 5 star- “Great app, it does a really good job showing when I reach a ‘deep state’ of sleep. And is very accurate as to when I am awake and sleeping”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • August 4, 2016: 1 star: Uses an iPhone 6 and says loved the app at first, but now the time changes itself at night causing the alarm not to be reliable.
    • August 3, 2016: 1 star- “In the old version you can actually hear yourself whil you where (sp) asleep and everything was free I enjoyed this app a lot but now you have to pay for most of the free stuff. Very disappointed with this app.”
    • August 2, 2016: 1 star- “The app worked flawlessly until the ninth night. Then the alarm portion failed to wake me up. Then nothing again on the ninth 10th, 11th, 12th… I know (sp) have to use my regular iPhone alarm to wake up. There is a serious bug in this latest release.”
    • August 2, 2016: 1 star- Used the app for travel and really liked the white noise feature, but now that is only available with the Premium version. As a result is no longer using or recommending the app.
    • August 1, 2016: 1 star- Loved the app at first, but the alarm didn’t make a sound even though the screen read “alarm.” Confirmed via testing alarms that it’s still not working right, so no longer using the app.
  • Most common complaints:
    • Most of the complaints revolve around the alarm not going off for one reason or another. If using this app for an important wake-up time, might be best to have a backup.

8) Instant Heart Rate- Heart Rate Monitor Free

  • Cost: FreeInstant Heart Rate Monitor
  • Download Link
  • Description:
    • Just featured in Apple’s new TV Ad “Strength” – use your iPhone to find out your heart rate in less than 10 seconds!
    • Also now supports Apple Health App, please enable in Instant Heart Rate Settings -> Health App Sharing.
    • You DON’T need a dedicated heart rate monitor to get your pulse, download Instant Heart Rate today and use your camera’s flash to see how healthy you are!
    • With over 35 million users, the award-winning Instant Heart Rate app is all over the web.
    • Featured in: CNN, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, and many more.
    • Instant Heart Rate is continuously rated as the world’s best mobile heart rate measurement app and is trusted by Stanford’s leading cardiologists for use in clinical trials.
    • How it works:
      • Place the tip of your index finger on the iPhone’s camera, and in a couple of seconds, your pulse will be shown!
      • Instant Heart Rate detects a color change in your finger tip each time your heart beats and uses an advanced algorithm to show you your heart rate.
      • A real-time chart will show you every heartbeat, similar to pulse oximeters used in hospitals.
  • Features
    • Included free with app
      • Heart rate measurement
      • Heart Rate Activity Zone Calculator
      • Pulse waveform graphs
      • Real-time photoplethysmogram (PPG) graph
      • Continuous or Auto-Stop mode
      • Unlimited data storage and tags
      • Export data for registered users
      • StandUp test for fatigue and fitness testing
      • Sharing to Twitter and Facebook
      • Apple Health App Support (Instant Heart Rate Settings -> Health App Sharing)
    • Premium features available
      • Upgrade to Premium to receive unlimited access to Premium Programs and Playpen Freeplay workouts, HD videos, dynamic and motivational audio, workout email summaries with tips and advice on healthy living, priority support, and more through renewable iTunes subscription.
  • In-App Purchases:
    • Premium subscription is $30/ year or $9.99/ month
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 116 ratings
    • 5 star reviews: 105
    • 4 star reviews: 7
    • 3 star reviews: 2
    • 2 star reviews: 1
    • 1 star reviews: 1
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 13,198 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 9,410
    • 4 star reviews: 2,180
    • 3 star reviews: 477
    • 2 star reviews: 292
    • 1 star reviews: 839
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 18, 2016: 5 stars- “Love this.”
    • August 18, 2016: 5 star- “Just as accurate as the strap on the chest. Truly amazing it works so well with just the flash on the phone’s camera.”
    • August 18, 2016: 5 star- “This app helps me monitor my heart rate.”
    • August 18, 2016: 5 star- “Always comes through”
    • August 18, 2016: 4 star- “East to use and reading is close”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • August 18, 2016: 3 star- “Used to be great. The old free version kept your data so you could track your HR over time. They changed it  and now it’s advertising heavy, buggy, and not as useful.”
    • August 8, 2016: 1 star- User can’t get the app to work using iPhone 4 & 4s. App keeps saying “No Finger” and doesn’t give a reading.
    • July 27, 2016: 1 star- Says app has too many pop up ads that make it “not even functional” and annoying.
    • July 26, 2016: 1 star- Says the app has too many ads “with seemingly one goal, to up sell you.”
    • July 25, 2016: 1 star- “Constant redirects and ads”
  • Most common complaints:
    • The vast majority of complaints revolve around ads in the free app. Some also complain about difficulty getting a reading.

9) WebMD – Trusted Health and Wellness Information

***WebMD does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek theWeb MDadvice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the WebMD mobile application.

  • Cost: Free
  • Download Link
  • Description:
    • WebMD for iPhone offers physician-reviewed health content and interactive tools in addition to on-demand healthy living information. The innovative design marries content and utility informed by more than five years of user insights and feedback.
    • WebMD for iPhone also features Healthy Target, an innovative health improvement program that will help you create and sustain healthy habits. By connecting an activity tracker, wireless scale, blood pressure monitor, or glucometer you’ll be able to view all of your data in one location and receive WebMD contextual content and insights. Additionally, Healthy Target allows you to use HealthKit to sync with the Apple Health app.
    • Get access to your favorite WebMD health tools like Symptom Checker and local health listings, in addition to the most up-to-date information about medicine and first aid essentials. All in one elegant app. From the most trusted brand in health information.
  • Features
    • WebMD Symptom Checker – Select the part of the body that is troubling you, choose your symptoms, and learn about potential conditions or issues.
    • Medication Reminders – View daily medication schedules and instructions, pill images with dosage and timing information, and receive reminders for when it’s time to take a given medication.
    • Healthy Target – Create and sustain healthy habits by tracking your progress daily, connecting wearable devices, and getting actionable insights at the end of each week.
    • Healthy Living – Choose the healthy living interests that matter most to you to customize a daily lifestyle magazine of tips, fun facts, articles, quizzes, and slideshows.
    • Conditions – Find medically reviewed information about conditions relevant to you and learn more about causes, treatments, and related symptoms.
    • Medicine – Search our extensive database for information on drugs, supplements, and vitamins. Read about uses, side effects, and warnings, and access our Pill ID tool.
    • First Aid Essentials – Your handy guide for medical emergencies. From insect stings to broken bones, helpful treatment tips are always available, even without an Internet connection.
    • Local Health Listings – Find the closest physician, hospital, and pharmacy based on your current location or search by city, state or zip.
    • Customization: Create and save your conditions, medicine, first aid information, doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and healthy living articles for secure, easy access and reference.
  • In-App Purchases:
    • None
  • Current version rating: 4.5 stars, 391 ratings
    • 5 star reviews: 299
    • 4 star reviews: 58
    • 3 star reviews: 10
    • 2 star reviews: 4
    • 1 star reviews: 20
  • All time rating: 3.5 stars, 51,187 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 18,147
    • 4 star reviews: 9,286
    • 3 star reviews: 10,235
    • 2 star reviews: 6,042
    • 1 star reviews: 7,477
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 18, 2016: 4 stars- “Always handy for a quick search.”
    • August 17, 2016: 5 star- “This app does what I need, helps me stay on schedule of my meds. Also nice to be able to look up medical info, without going to another app.”
    • August 15, 2016: 4 star- “I’ve used this app to get information on many difficult medical experiences and it’s been very helpful.”
    • August 13, 2016: 5 star- “I have it on my phone because I don’t want to leave home without it. It has information that I find useful.”
    • August 12, 2016: 4 star- “Is awesome, reminds me when my medication is due. Love it. thank you!!”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • August 7, 2016: 1 star- User bought Fitbit app, Strava and the WebMD app at the same time to better track health and exercise. However, although “WebMD advertises that their app can sync data from Fitbit” the sync only worked for about a week and hasn’t worked since. Support has been slow in responding and no resolution has been found, nor is there any indication that it will be.
    • July 6, 2016: 1 star- “Does not work with Fitbit Charge HR.” User was able to get it to work for a while by specifying Fitbit Flex, but it stopped syncing and still isn’t working. Also stated that “support is apparently nonexistent.”
    • July 5, 2016: 1 star- “When linking to FitBit, I was given a warning that ‘HTTPS is not being used to protect this data’, and when I clicked anyway, I get a javascript error which makes me wonder where my data actually went. Trying to link to walgreens redirects you to striiv, but does not at all make clear what the relationship is, and visiting striiv’s page did little to clear this up. Uninstalling and changing passwords to any accounts I allowed WebMD to have access to quickly.”
    • June 21, 2016: 1 star- User downloaded the app to track their various physicians’ information in one place, but despite being able to look up physicians, they found no way to save them or add them to a favorites list.
    • June 8, 2016: 1 star- App crashes all the time and says it needs an Internet connection even when the phone is connected to the Internet.
  • Most common complaints:
    • Most of the complaints are focused on poor Fitbit integration and the lack of more frequent updates (as of August 19, 2016 the last update was January 19, 2016)

10) Smoke Free – Quit smoking now and stop for good

  • Cost: FreeSmoke Free
  • Download Link
  • Description & Features:
    • This is the stop smoking app that science built. Over 20 different, evidence-based, techniques to help you become – and stay – smoke free. See how much money you’ve saved, how many cigarettes you’ve not smoked, how long you’ve been smoke free, how much life you’ve regained and how your health is improving.
    • Log your cravings, get tips on dealing with them, use the map to see where they congregate, the notes to see what patterns can be identified and the graph to see how they’re decreasing.
    • All this is free to use and entirely free of ads. If you need extra help giving up smoking our missions could be just what you need, as they’ve been proven to double your chances of quitting. No other app can promise you this.
    • We proved the missions worked by performing a rigorous scientific experiment. As far as we know, this is the first ever randomised control trial run entirely within an app. Its success means we want to run many more and our goal is to constantly make our app more effective
    • This is all entirely voluntary and you can download the app without taking part in the experiment. Your data will be kept anonymous and you can delete it at any time. But we really hope you do take part because everyone who does will help the quitters who follow. So do yourself a favour by quitting smoking. And do your fellow smokers a favour by helping them understand how it’s done.
    • Smoke Free Pro additional features
      • Over 1 month of daily missions scientifically proven to increase your chances of success
      • Customise the dashboard with your progress as you want to see
      • Choose a treat to buy with your savings and watch the time count down until you can afford it
      • Get help with cravings. Identify triggers and locations. Personalise tips to get you through difficult times
      • A clock that displays your time smoke free beautifully
  • In-App Purchases:
    • Smoke Free Pro: $4.99
  • Current version rating: 5 stars, 78 ratings
    • 5 star reviews: 66
    • 4 star reviews: 9
    • 3 star reviews: 2
    • 2 star reviews: 1
    • 1 star reviews: 0
  • All time rating: 4.5 stars, 1,331 reviews
    • 5 star reviews: 1,104
    • 4 star reviews: 151
    • 3 star reviews: 35
    • 2 star reviews: 19
    • 1 star reviews: 22
  • 5 most recent reviews:
    • August 18, 2016: 5 stars- “Smoked about a pack every day and a half for the past three year, after quitting once for two….I didn’t want to stop but was lately have been feeling extra exhausted and then scared by how out of breath and how bad my lungs hurt after attempting a HIIT workout. I’m on my 4th day. Day 3 was horrible, and if I didn’t have this app I know from experience I would have 100% cracked. You give up your best friend when you quick and this app is literally that- a really great, encouraging friend, there to talk you trough (sp) cravings and send you up to the minute progress reports. It’s also a super easy and cool way to share your progress and journey with loved ones. Every time I want a cigarette I send my mom or boyfriend the up to minute progress page and their responses are always super supportive which really helps. Still discovering more of the app, there’s really so much! Highly, highly recommend this for anyone that just quite or wants to. A real lung-saver!”
    • August 17, 2016: 5 star- “Helps remind me every day”
    • August 16, 2016: 5 star- This avid smoker just downloaded the app, and will start in the morning. Eager to earn badges and says it looks promising. Wishes the app had an “I smoked” button showing negative health effects and some badges that relate to the health bars.
    • August 16, 2016: 5 star- “This app is super motivating if you’re ready to quit. Not only does it show you all your heath benefits but it’s basically a little life coach in an app. I’ve been recommending the crap out of this app and use it everyday. It’s been 20 days since my last smoke and I feel great.”
    • August 16, 2016: 5 star- “It has helped me and motivated me to stay off the cigs.”
  • Most recent critical reviews:
    • July 1, 2016: 2 star- “This app is ok for trying to quit smoking, but it is a RIP OFF. They trick you into spending $5 for almost ZERO change. Almost nothing is different than the free portion of the app. It’s wrong and plain not fair! Seems like they care more about taking money than helping people quit smoking honestly!! I’m very frustrated”
    • June 25, 2016: 3 star- Says it’s alright but not impressed because you have to pay for everything. “It’s like one big advertisement”
    • June 5, 2016: 1 star- “Paid for upgrade immediately. Only giving a star because zero stars isn’t an option. Doesn’t update progress if you slip & smoke. Free apps offer better”
    • June 1, 2016: 1 star- “This used to be a great app. Then they decided making money was more important than helping people, so they locked up most of the features. Unless you want to spend $5, get a different app.
  • Most common complaints:
    • Vast majority of the complaints related to the $5 charge for the Pro version. Either they don’t think it’s worth the fee or are upset that there is a fee at all.

Five tips to regain control of your own healthcare

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Healthcare hacksAlmost all of us, at some time or another, are going to depend on healthcare professionals and the medical industry. With a quickly-changing healthcare landscape shaped by technological advances and shifting insurance, billing and privacy laws, that can be overwhelming. intimidating and frustrating – especially when trying to decipher the alphabet soup of health care terms and policies. With that in mind, here are five tips that you can implement that will give you more control over the process and even help you save money.

1. Get your own digital copy of your medical records

Having your own copy of your medical records can really come in handy when you change primary care doctors, see a new specialist, or a variety of other individual reasons. This is especially important when you have a procedure like surgery or other specialized care, because your primary doctor and any future doctor won’t have access to those records until you provide them or specifically request in writing to have the specialist office send over the records.

Because of privacy laws, doctor’s offices cannot send or receive medical records via email. Instead, you can only receive them via fax, mail or in person. The “hack” here is to sign up for an online fax service (if you don’t already have one) and have the doctor’s office fax the records to that number. The fax will be automatically converted into a digital PDF file and sent to you as an attachment. If you do this one time, you can sign up with a company that offers a 30 or 60 day free trial and get the documents for free. However, some services are so cheap (less than $5 per month) that having one available for the occasional fax is probably worth it. Another example where you might need to fax with a doctor’s office is to send them information from your insurance company to get help with billing issues (they won’t accept this via email either).

Dealing with a medical condition or a switch to a new provider can be messy and stressful, but having easy access to your records – and not having to wait for snail mail – can make the whole process much easier.

Nancy Finn, author of the book e-Patients Live Longer: The Complete Guide to Managing Health Care Using Technology, says in this interview with Healthcare IT News that patients should also create a personal health record that includes medical histories, medications and allergies. “Digital communication tools will help you become an empowered patient,” she says.

2. Know your insurance plan

While very, very few people look forward to delving into the thick book that arrives each year with your health insurance card, there’s some really crucial information in there that you will be glad you know when it comes time to schedule appointments, see specialists, or contest something from your insurer.

You don’t have to read the whole tome, but you should familiarize yourself with the deductible, co-pay, and out of pocket maximum.

The deductible is the amount that the policyholder pays toward your medical costs each year before the insurer begins to pay its share. A co-pay is the flat fee you pay for certain expenses – including a trip to a doctor’s office or a procedure. And an out of pocket maximum is the total amount you can expect to pay each year for costs that include your deductible and copays (although some new plans don’t include copays in their out-of-pocket calculations). Once you hit that number – and it may vary from less than $1,000 to more than $10,000 – insurance pays for 100% of your healthcare costs. Deductibles, co-pays, and out of pocket maximums vary from plan to plan, and from year to year. And because our insurance landscape is changing very rapidly – in part due to the Affordable Care Act, and in part due to health care and prescription costs – you should never assume that your plan will be the same as it was last year.

Some insurers cover certain visits, like annual checkups, at 100%, no matter where you are with your deductible. And most include a set number of specialist visits, like mental health of physical therapy.

Secondly, read the fine print about who is in and out of network with your plan and what treatments are covered. For instance, a hospital may be in network with your plan, but an individual doctor may not be. If you’re planning a non-emergency procedure, take the time to double check that all the providers are, in fact, in network – it may save you thousands of dollars and a lot of time.

3. Speaking of deductibles…

If you know you’re going to be scheduling a non-emergency procedure, figure out how much you have left in your deductible, and how much time is left in the year. If you can meet your deductible with the procedure with time left in the year, you’ll get more mileage out of your coverage. If it’s late in the year already and you haven’t used much of the deductible, consider waiting until the beginning of the following year, if you’re able. That way, any procedures that come up for the remainder of the year won’t require any more payments toward your deductible.

For instance if you have $1,000 left until you meet your deductible and more than 6 months left in the year, getting an elective or non-urgent procedure could mean you meet your deductible and therefore have only copays (or, depending on the plan, no copays) left to pay for any additional healthcare costs for the rest of the year.

4. Use a broker

This may not apply to everyone, but for those who have special medical needs, or buy insurance for someone who does, a broker is an invaluable resource. If you’re a business owner, it’s also a great idea to work with a health insurance broker, as they know the ins and outs of the insurance landscape and can help you find the best plan for your needs.

Not everyone buying an individual plan will need a broker. But if you’re buying an individual plan to cover a specific treatment or therapy – many states mandate that individual insurance plans cover medical costs that employer plans may opt out of covering – then a broker can help you find a plan that covers your specific provider needs. Many families with children on the autism spectrum rely on brokers to help match them with plans that cover behavioral, physical, and speech therapy, for example.

Brokers stay on top of all the market changes, including which plans are available, shifts in plans like a change from PPO to HMO plans that can affect hyper-local markets – sometimes a plan is available in only a few counties in each state – and changes in laws that require employers to buy certain coverage. Whether you’re looking for the best plan to fit your family’s needs or are trying to stay on top of legal requirements, a good broker will save you a lot of time and stress.

5. Record information about doctor’s visits

Having digitized healthcare records (see #1) is a great step toward keeping track of your visits, procedures, and recommendations. If you’re going through an intensive healthcare treatment process, like cancer treatment, you may also want to consider keeping your own records.

That can include a healthcare journal, where you record names and contact information of the members of your healthcare team, questions for your doctor, and daily experiences with treatment. Include your doctor’s answers to your questions too – that can come in handy of one specialist recommends something that seems to contradict what another provider says. Or, if your doctor allows it, record your visit. That way you can hear specific information that your doctor gives you, and replay it for other members of your healthcare team or for family.

Staying Out of Porting Purgatory: What You Need to Know if You Want To Keep Your Phone Number

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Porting Phone Number
Finding yourself suddenly without your business phone or fax numbers because of a porting pitfall can be more than an inconvenience: imagine having to change numbers on all of your printed business material, from business cards to brochures; updating websites; reaching out to all your contacts; and trying to remember everywhere you’ve listed your numbers. Then there are contracts, accounts, and other filings that you will have to go back and update if you are forced to get new numbers. Avoiding that is worth reading some fine print and understanding how to port a number from a VoIP or online fax carrier before you need to do so.

In these days of mobile technology, your VoIP phone or online fax number is more than just a convenience; it is a vital part of any business’s communications, whether you’re a sole proprietor or part of a company with 100 employees. It’s easy to take for granted that you’ll always be able to keep our phone and fax numbers, since many providers allow you to port an existing number in or out to a new service.

But what happens if you get a phone or fax number with a VoIP or online fax provider that doesn’t allow you to take that number with you when you change to a new provider? While number portability is common, it’s not a given, and in fact some companies have steep penalties for taking a number with you to another service. Others make porting possible, but only if you follow an exact series of steps or agree to pay a fee.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress first mandated number portability in 1996, and that means that all telecommunications carriers must allow number porting. However, some carriers refuse to port out numbers by claiming that they’re not telecommunications carriers, and that they therefore aren’t subject to number porting rules.

Carriers that have successfully made that claim, including online fax companies owned by J2 Global, Inc., have done so by stating that their cloud services exempt them from U.S. telecommunications services regulation. In other words, even though they transmit information over telephone lines, the service they provide can be classified as “information services” instead of “telecommunications services.”

“Ports involve a ‘losing carrier,’ and most of the pitfalls arise around the losing carrier not correctly responding to port-out requests, or delaying, or asking for money,” says Andrew Benton, CEO of Charge. “There is a lot of fine print about porting that’s never read when first choosing a service provider. It pays to be careful and ask questions to document what a carrier’s porting procedures are before establishing service. Of course, the losing carrier doesn’t have any incentive to assist you when switching service. This is an obvious source of issues.”

Benton says that in order to port most non-mobile numbers – including “virtual” numbers from VoIP providers – you need a Letter of Authorization, often provided by the new carrier you’re trying to port into.

For instance, Nextiva and RingCentral are among those whose porting policies require a LOA in order to port a number out. Others, like Google Voice (a free service) require you to unlock your number before porting it out, and pay a $3 fee.

Almost all providers require you to keep your number active while going through porting, another detail which can be easy to overlook. Paying attention to details like the wording in the LOA and keeping the account active can make or break a porting experience.

“Porting is really a straight forward process as long as you follow the carriers guidelines,” says David Xiong, vice president of technology with JDigital Voice. “Most of the time, that includes making sure the phone is currently active and not disconnected and making sure you correctly spell the name of the business on the LOA form to match exactly the invoice. That is the BIGGEST problem people have. You MUST make sure you follow the spelling of the name EXACTLY. Any character wrong and it poses a potential to get rejected. Every period, comma or LLC extension must match exactly. Not following these two guidelines will get your port request rejected.”

John Kinskey, founder of AccessDirect, Inc., says number porting in general can be an arcane and often confusing process “If you’re ever having trouble getting a number ported, I really recommend contacting a supervisor and explaining, plainly, what you are trying to do. Porting numbers doesn’t come up enough where frontline customer service is fully trained to answer those questions.”

Some providers simply don’t allow porting at all. J2 companies, which include online fax providers eFax and MyFax, put language in their customer agreements about not porting numbers out (in all caps for added emphasis!): “YOU FURTHER UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOU ARE NOT THE OWNER OF ANY eFAX NUMBER ASSIGNED TO YOU BY j2 GLOBAL. OWNERSHIP OF ANY SUCH eFAX NUMBER IS VESTED SOLELY IN j2 GLOBAL…YOU ARE EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED FROM CAUSING OR ATTEMPTING TO CAUSE THE eFAX NUMBER ASSIGNED TO YOUR ACCOUNT TO BE TRANSFERRED TO ANY OTHER SERVICE PROVIDER, TELEPHONE CARRIER OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY.” What’s more, if you do port a number from a J2 carrier to another service, whether intentionally or by accident, J2 will automatically charge your credit card $500.

Benton says that since carriers like eFax do not consider themselves telecommunications carriers, they’ve been able to refuse to port out numbers. Whether or not that would hold up in court remains to be seen, he adds.

The bottom line is that it pays to do some advance reading before picking a VoIP or Internet fax provider. Chances are that you won’t stay with the same provider forever, and if you don’t want an unpleasant and expensive surprise when it comes time to change to a new service, you should know your options before committing to a provider.

Fax Medical Records from Home Without A Fax Machine

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Free Fax Medical RecordsIf you need to send medical records to a doctor’s office or a hospital, you might come up against policies that require you to mail, hand deliver, or fax those documents. While most people no longer have a fax machine, there are a few options for sending faxes through an online provider for free or at a very low cost.

There are online fax providers that will let you send a certain number of pages for free, such as HelloFax, although anything beyond those free pages will add up. In the case of HelloFax, faxes cost 99 cents per page after the first five pages without a subscription.

If you need to send a lengthier fax – a complete medical history, for instance – it may instead make sense to pay for one month of an online fax service.

Picking a Provider

There are several good choices when it comes to finding low-priced online fax providers to help you send a secure fax such as medical records.

SRFax offers a plan (Lite 200) that includes 200 total inbound and outbound fax pages per month, for $6.95 per month. It also offers one of the longest free trials of any provider, 60 days, although it doesn’t have some of the features that other providers include – eSigning and a mobile device app are the most notable features missing.

MetroFax’s Essential plan runs for $7.95 per month, and includes up to 500 total pages and a 30 day free trial. MetroFax doesn’t offer eSigning, but it does have a smartphone app for iOS and Android that allows you to send faxes directly from a smartphone using your camera, or send documents saved in cloud storage.

Nextiva is a good option for people with a lengthy medical history and / or the need to send that history to multiple medical professionals. The Single User plan includes 1,000* pages for $8.95/ month and offers a 30 day free trial.

FaxAge also offers a reasonably-priced package at $7.95 per month that includes 300 inbound pages and 300 outbound pages. FaxAge does not offer a free trial.

RingCentral’s Fax 500 plan costs $9.99 per month, and includes up to 500 total pages, along with a 30-day free trial. RingCentral also offers smartphone apps for iOS and Android.

If you choose a provider that offers a free trial, you can opt to try it out for that time period and then cancel if the service is not right for you.

* Nextiva typically only includes 500 pages with this plan, but people signing up using one of FaxCompare’s links get 1,000.

Sign Up

Once you have the medical records you’ll need to send and have selected a provider, it’s time to sign up. As an example, we’ll walk through the process here with SRFax.

First, select the plan you want to try:

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And then decide whether you’d like a toll free or local fax number.

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Once you’ve created an account and password, you will be able to go directly into your account and under “Faxes” choose to send a fax.

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Note the button that lets you select files to attach. SRFax supports a number of compressed, document, and image file formats. If you choose to include a cover page, it will look like this:

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Once you’ve finished attaching files and filled out your cover sheet, just click the “Send” button on the bottom of the screen.

What You Need to Know About Nextiva’s Latest Update

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Popular business VoIP service Nextiva just released a slew of updates to their faxing service and website to better accommodate online faxing needs. Whether you’re a current user looking to stay informed or a potential customer in the market for a new faxing service, you can check out some of highlights outlined below.

vFAX Overview

Nextiva’s vFAX product allows you to send and receive fax via email, with or without a fax machine. Nextiva notably offers something called the Fax Bridge, which is a little device that links a vFAX account to a physical fax machine and allows the user to use the analog machine through vFAX’s online portal. This is great for users who prefer to send and receive physical faxes, while still retaining the ability to save faxes and send notifications by way of the service’s virtual portal.
Nextiva fax pricing ranges from $4.95/ month (with annual pricing) to $34.95/ month. Features included with each tier consist of faxing via email (which means faxing anywhere you have internet and/or your cell phone), the ability to retain your current fax number, document confidentiality, guaranteed delivery (if a busy signal comes up, Nextiva just keeps sending until the fax is delivered) and analog support through Fax Bridge. The company boasts a customer list that features clients like Burger King, Delta Air Lines, and Target. A complete pricing and feature comparison of each of Nextiva’s fax products can be found here.

What’s Changing

Nextiva’s updated website is much easier on the eyes thanks to its new, streamlined aesthetic. Text content is sparser and less cramped, and finding what you’re looking for is a straightforward process thanks to a simplified menu bar. Contact numbers for sales and support remain accessible in the top right corner of the page.
If you’re new to the service or looking to brush up on your faxing know-how, Nextiva now offers explanatory how-to videos that users can access through the company’s new website. These videos walk newer customers through basic steps (such as sending/viewing faxes, notification setup, and billing portal navigation) and also provide more experienced users with tips for effective use the fax service. To further ensure a seamless setup process for new users, the company is also rolling out an email drip campaign to teach customers how to use basic features, introduce additional vFAX capabilities, and suggest other Nextiva products. A shift from Flash to HTML5 promises vFAX accessibility from an increased number of web browsers. Additionally, if you opt to use Fax Bridge, the device will feature updated packaging and improved guides so you can get the most of your dual faxing capabilities.

What’s Staying the Same

There are a few aspects of Nextiva’s service that have been around for a while and will continue to generate customer satisfaction through the company’s future updates. For one thing, Nextiva’s competitive pricing will hold steady for all three plans—no price hike as a result of the changes. Nextiva will also continue to offer their trademarked “Amazing Service,” which guarantees 95% of support calls will be answered by the second ring. The company might be expanding at a rapid rate, but the website and vFAX updates ensure that Nextiva’s existing services will receive the same level of care and attention as forthcoming products.