How to Automate Documents Into eClinicalWorks EHR

Like other multi-location practices in the U.S., those using eClinicalWorks spend a significant amount of time working inbound faxes for patient intake, prior authorizations, and referrals. In fact, a recent survey of CHIME members found that nearly half of respondents say their staff spends 10-15% of their time on manual and/or paper-based processes, and another 27% say they spend up to 50% on similar processes. 

While eClinicalWorks is a leading EHR, a significant amount of work still needs to be done before the document is even usable in the chart. With a document automation solution, all of that work can be addressed, and unnecessary, manual processes can be eliminated without replacing the EHR. Yet operational leaders may have concerns about accuracy and compliance risk, potential workflow disruptions, if staff intervention is needed, and whether or not automation is even necessary. Here, we explore the challenges organizations face, how eClinicalWorks document automation can drive workflow efficiencies, and what you need to know when evaluating potential vendors. 

Key Takeaways

• Multi-location practices on eClinicalWorks spend too much time on handling documents like patient intake, prior authorizations, and referrals before they’re even usable. 

• Healthcare document automation doesn’t replace eClinicalWorks, but it’s the necessary layer that organizes workflows before anything can be filed in the EHR.  

• Linking documents to eClinicalWorks, clinical-data extraction, and automatic routing are all important criteria for potential vendors. 

• Documo’s eClinicalWorks fax automation integration reduces administrative burden, handles more documents faster, and helps organizations drive revenue without additional overhead. 

The Challenges of eClinicalWorks Multi-Location Practice Workflows

Every day, multi-location practices receive a high volume of faxed referrals, records, orders, labs, forms, and other clinical documents across sites and departments.

eClinicalWorks manages the patient record if the information is accurate and in the chart, but everything that happens up to that point is where the problem lies. There is still a significant amount of work that has to be done before the documents can be used. According to our research, 52% of faxes to health systems still require staff intervention. 

Staff have to:

• Monitor shared fax queues
• Open, review, and sift through batch documents 
• Separate prior authorizations, patient intake forms, and referrals
• Rekey information
• Route documents across locations and teams
• File charts
• Handle exceptions

Plus, with multiple locations, ownership and routing to the right site, department, and staff is difficult, particularly when documents come through shared fax numbers and there are inconsistent, unclear processes within the organization.

The eClinicalWorks Fax Automation Workflow

Automation isn’t a replacement for eClinicalWorks EHR. Rather, it’s the critical document automation layer that can organize the workflow before everything is filed in the record. 

Here’s what a referral automation workflow looks like:

Step #1. The fax referral is received through a secure cloud fax platform. The referral is captured digitally with full metadata and is ready for processing. Every referral is routed by fax number and automatically routed to the right workspace for designated users.

Step #2. Using Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), referrals are organized in the queue and separated from other documents that come in. When staff open the workspace, they only see the referrals.

Step #3. The structured data that drives scheduling and intake decisions is extracted. Specific fields such as patient demographics, insurance information, and referral provider information are configured to match the workflow. During this step, incomplete fields, low-quality scans, and ambiguous values are surfaced in the exception queue. 

Step #4. During patient matching, the output is mapped directly to what the intake team needs and how the eClinicalWork EHR is configured so none of the information has to be rekeyed.

Step #5. Referrals are routed to the right place based on configurable rules. Routing logic can be built on any combination of fields, fax numbers, senders, locations, payers, specialty, and extracted clinical data. Workspaces allow teams to have a centralized way to manage referrals across practices that have their own 

individual fax numbers, use several channels to receive referrals, and have multiple queues.

Step #6:  Exceptions are surfaced to the workspace in a structured review queue for a human to review and address.

Step  #7. Staff can view a complete audit trail that details and verifies every step in the process. Operational leaders have real-time visibility into the queue depth, average processing time, and bottlenecks.

Once referrals have been processed and routed to the right team, location, and department, staff can schedule patients for their appointments. Automation can address all of the manual processes before a referral is ready, yet human intervention is still necessary for reliable workflows. 

The automation’s confidence thresholds and exception handling allow staff to work only on referrals that need human intervention, eliminating the need for every document to be touched.

Evaluation Criteria for Healthcare Document Automation: A Checklist

In 2025, we conducted a survey of 100+ healthcare administrators and IT professionals and asked them what they value most in a fax solution. Nearly 9 in 10 cited the ability to link documents to the EHR. Almost the same number cited clinical-data extraction (87%) and automatic routing (86%).

Here is a set of criteria to consider and questions to ask when evaluating potential healthcare document automation vendors for eClinicalWorks multi-location practices.

• Is there one queue across all of our fax numbers or multiple queues?
  
• Is every fax routed by fax number and placed in a respective workspace?

• Does the platform offer patient matching?
  
• Are documents categorized by separate medical record numbers?
  
• How are exceptions handled?
  
• Can you provide a human review screen for an ambiguous document?

• Do users have different permission levels based on the type of access?
  
• Can staff view a complete audit trail to verify every step?
  
• Do operational leaders have real-time visibility into the queue depth, average processing time, and bottlenecks?
  
• What are the implementation requirements? Is support offered?
  
• Is there an integration for the automation solution? Will it require us to change our systems or workflows?
  

What is Documo’s eClinicalWorks Fax Automation Integration?

With the Documo-eClinicalWorks document automation integration, multi-location practices alleviate administrative burden, process referrals, prior authorizations, and patient intake documents faster, and generate more revenue without additional overhead.  

The Documo platform addresses all of these priorities through its products:

Cloud Fax is a secure, HIPAA-compliant online fax service designed for healthcare. Users can send and receive documents from any browser without a fax machine, phone line, or hardware. They receive a complete record of when faxes are received, accessed, and acted on to give their teams better visibility and ensure every document is received.

Workspaces classify documents, automatically extract patient data, organize documents by team or workflow, and send everything to the eClinicalWorks EHR. Workspaces are a shared inbox that belong to a team instead of individuals or the entire organization, and can be dedicated for prior authorizations, referrals, patient intake forms, or any other healthcare document. Instead of sitting in a shared folder or drive, staff save time and start processing documents immediately. 

Intelligent Document Processing splits batches of faxes by patient, classifies the document type, and extracts structured data into key fields. Instead of manually sorting through stacks of documents, reviewing and rekeying data, staff can focus on their patients instead of the paperwork.

The Documo-eClinicalWorks integration fits into the existing tech stack without forcing practices into rip-and-replace projects or workflow changes. Users can upload files from the storage software, connect the platforms, and easily scale without additional infrastructure. 

With Documo’s eClinicalWorks fax automation solution, organizations can reduce manual handling of healthcare documents, reclaim staff time, and drive revenue. 

Assess Your Workflow → Let’s explore your current workflows, see where bottlenecks are slowing your team, and how Documo can drive revenue without additional staff. Contact us today.

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