With 25 years of experience in the document management industry, projects often come down to a simple question – Should we scan our documents or securely store them and retrieve them on an as-needed basis? The answer depends on several factors. Let us first define both services. What is document scanning? In its simplest terms, document scanning is the process of converting paper documents to digital images. Through experience and adaptation, we have perfected our scanning process and procedures.  How does document scanning work? We start by preparing the documents for scanning, which mea ..read more

What Is Bulk Document Scanning? Bulk document scanning is the process of converting a large amount of physical paper to digital images using a trained team and high-volume document scanners. The digital images are then either exported to a document management system (DMS), uploaded to a cloud-based server, or to an external hard drive where they can be easily searched for and retrieved.  At Shoreline, we have worked with hundreds of companies across several industries to convert their paper documents to electronic images. Over the span of years, we have learned that each industry has spec ..read more

Recently, in a conversation with a former patient of one of our physician customers, the patient expressed how smooth the process had been between the practice closing and getting a copy of her medical chart. She highlighted how her doctor had announced his retirement to patients with much time in advance. During this time, patients had the option to request their charts and were provided with Shoreline's contact information for further assistance. She was so pleased that her doctor had taken the time to care and make these arrangements to be so thorough with his patients. It is precisely for ..read more

We all know that doctors are extremely intelligent. Yet, no matter how smart they are, they’re only human and make mistakes. Doctors' most common mistakes happen when it comes to dealing with their patient records, either after retirement or when the practice closes. During the past few years in the Medical Records Custodian Service industry, our team at Shoreline has seen many repetitive mistakes and has come up with the 5 most common ones we see from case to case. Like any important decision in life, it is essential to plan your patient charts' appropriate care once your practice closes or y ..read more

When one thinks of the concerns that physicians may have, the closing of their practice is not number one on that list. They tend to be more concerned with patients, insurance companies, attorneys, business logistics, etc., and rightly so.  Once the time comes to retire or close their practice, they may be faced with uncertainty and questions. What is my obligation to my patient charts when I am retired? What if I join another practice? What is the optimal process? The answer often varies from case to case depending on a number of factors including paper vs. electronic patient charts ..read more

Each state has their own set of laws which require school districts to retain certain student records for set amounts of time. These time constraints can range from 1 to 6 years, to some records that must be kept permanently. For example, in New York, cumulative achievement record equivalent (sometimes known as a Permanent Record Card) for elementary and secondary school must be kept permanently.  Some schools across the nation are taking a proactive approach. For example, this article highlights what one school district is doing to become paperless and why. Among Permanent Record Cards a ..read more

As Doctors across the country transition to Electronic Medical Record Systems, they’re confronted with a major decision, what do I do with my paper charts? Practices and Doctors have a few options to choose from: Continue to use the paper chart for all patient visits. Yes, Practices have the option to not implement an Electronic Medical Record System and continue to use paper charts like they always have. Financially is it the best option? It depends on how much of a penalty the practice will have to pay. Will operations and efficiency change? Maybe, they will probably remain the same but ev ..read more

The recent Brooklyn document storage warehouse fire, and many other tragedies, point out the importance of digitizing papers. The massive fire last week in Brooklyn’s CitiStorage Document Storage warehouse was not the first time a document storage facility has been destroyed. To name a few, 1997 South Brunswick, NJ, USA, 2006 London, England, 2006 Ottawa, Canada, 2011 Aprilia, Italy, and 2014 Buenos Aires, Argentina. With 1.1 Million Cubic Feet of records potentially destroyed at CitiStorage, including that of legal firms, financial intuitions, medical practices and hospitals (Mount Sinai Hea ..read more