From Digital Faxes to Intelligent Intake: How PACs & SNFs Can Automate Patient Onboarding

Introduction: The Digital Fax and Its Limits

It's 2025 but healthcare still operates like the 1970s. Almost all Post Acute Care facilities (PACs) and Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) still use digital fax solutions to manage patient intake, referrals, and authorizations.

This article aims to bring it back to 2025.

The changes we've seen over the last decade have helped the industry move forward from physical fax machines to digital e-faxes. While the digital faxes have improved document delivery, they have not solved the underlying inefficiencies of patient intake.

• Staff still manually review and extract data from faxed forms.
• Intake teams still follow up on missing information via phone and email.
• Critical documents still sit in digital queues, waiting to be processed, causing delays.

Digital faxing is an incremental improvement, but it does not eliminate manual workflows. The real transformation comes when PACs and SNFs automate intake processing—ensuring that patient documents move seamlessly from digital faxes into EHRs and case management systems without human intervention.

I learnt this the hard way. I was asked by my physician to get an Ultrasound at a very prominent laboratory who never scheduled an appointment with me. I did 3 rounds of followups with my the lab, physician, the lab to know where was my "fax" and why couldn't they get me in. It was lost in the "shuffle".

Long story short, I asked my physician to send me a copy of the fax, which I used to get the test done at a different facility. Hundreds of practices lose patient trust when they are unable to perform the most critical part of their job - "Patient Care".

Why Digital Faxes Alone Are Not Enough

1. Digital Faxes Still Require Manual Review and Data Entry

While digital fax solutions eliminate the need for paper handling, they still require human effort to process incoming documents.

A typical fax inbox shows a phone number with no details on demographics, provider, facility, procedure needed etc. So, when your front-end team is juggling 3 patients, 5 phone calls and processing those 1000 faxes all at the same time they will miss some of those faxes.

For the provided interface - Intake teams must:

• Manually open and review each fax to determine its type (intake form, referral, insurance documentation, etc.).
• Extract patient demographics, insurance details, and provider information by reading the document.
• Re-enter the data into multiple systems—EHRs, billing platforms, and authorization workflows.

This process is time-consuming and introduces opportunities for errors that can lead to delayed approvals, incorrect records, and denied claims.

2. Missing or Incomplete Information Still Causes Delays

Even though faxes are now digital, incomplete forms remain a significant issue.

• Intake coordinators still have to chase down missing fields, such as physician signatures, insurance IDs, or referral details.
• Staff must track document status manually, ensuring all required paperwork is received before proceeding with authorization or admission.
• Back-and-forth emails and phone calls are still necessary to verify missing or unclear information.

A truly automated intake process must be able to detect missing information upfront and initiate corrective actions without staff intervention.

3. Digital Faxes Create Data Silos

Most digital fax solutions function as standalone systems. Faxes are delivered to an inbox, but they do not automatically integrate with other patient intake workflows.

• Staff still need to download faxes and manually upload them into EHRs or prior authorization platforms.
• If intake teams want to track referral or authorization status, they must switch between multiple systems, leading to inefficiencies.
• There is no central source of truth—faxes live in one system, EHRs in another, and insurance portals in yet another.

Without seamless integration, digital faxes remain a bottleneck rather than a productivity boost.

How AI Transforms Digital Fax Workflows into Patient Intake

The real opportunity for PACs and SNFs is to move beyond basic digital faxing and implement intelligent intake automation—where digital faxes are not just received but processed automatically, without human involvement.

1. AI-Powered Data Extraction: Eliminating Manual Review

Instead of requiring intake coordinators to manually read and extract data from digital faxes, AI can automatically process key information in real time.

• Patient demographics, insurance details, and provider information are extracted and mapped to the correct fields.
• Referral forms, consent documents, and medical records are classified without human intervention.
• Data entry into EHRs and intake platforms is fully automated, reducing administrative burden.

With AI handling document processing, staff can focus on higher-value tasks rather than tedious data entry.

2. Automated Validation to Catch Errors Before Submission

Incomplete or incorrect intake forms slow down the entire process. Automation can flag issues instantly instead of requiring human review.

• If a document is missing a required field, the system automatically notifies the sender for correction.
• If data does not match existing records, the system alerts intake staff before submission.
• Automated workflows ensure that only complete and accurate patient intake forms are processed, reducing denials and rework.

By eliminating manual back-and-forth communication, PACs and SNFs can reduce intake processing times by 50-70%.

3. Seamless Integration with EHRs and Intake Platforms

A key limitation of standalone digital fax systems is that they do not automatically integrate with EHRs, insurance portals, or case management systems. Automation enables true interoperability.

• Digital faxes are not just received but automatically pushed into the appropriate system without requiring downloads or manual uploads.
• Patient records are updated in real-time, ensuring that all stakeholders—from intake teams to billing staff—work with the most current information.
• No more toggling between multiple systems to track the status of referrals, authorizations, or patient admissions.

By creating a connected intake ecosystem, automation reduces processing errors, manual workload, and administrative friction.

4. Intelligent Routing and Workflow Automation

In many PACs and SNFs, digital faxes still require manual assignment—staff must determine which department needs to process each document.

With automation, incoming patient documents can be intelligently routed based on predefined rules:

• Prior authorization requests are automatically sent to the correct payer workflow.
• Referral documentation is matched to patient records and assigned to the appropriate care coordinator.
• Clinical forms are tagged and sent directly to relevant medical teams.

This ensures that each document reaches the right destination instantly, without manual handling.

The Business Case for Automating Digital Fax-Based Intake

PACs and SNFs that implement intelligent automation for digital fax workflows experience measurable benefits:

• 70-90% faster patient intake processing, reducing delays from days to hours.
• 50-70% reduction in manual workload, freeing up staff for higher-priority tasks.
• Significant reduction in data entry errors, leading to fewer claim denials and billing disputes.
• Stronger compliance with HIPAA and payer regulations, as automated workflows ensure data integrity and audit readiness.

With patient demand increasing and reimbursement models evolving, PACs and SNFs cannot afford slow, manual intake processes.

Conclusion: Moving Beyond Digital Faxes to Fully Automated Intake

Digital faxes solved one problem—eliminating paper—but they did not solve the inefficiencies of patient intake. Without automation, PACs and SNFs still face slow processing times, manual data entry, and administrative bottlenecks.

By implementing AI-driven intake automation, organizations can:

• Eliminate manual document processing and data entry
• Reduce intake turnaround times and accelerate patient access
• Minimize errors and improve payer approvals
• Integrate faxes seamlessly with EHRs and case management systems

The future of patient intake is not just digital—it is automated. Organizations that adopt intelligent intake workflows will be better positioned to handle growing patient volumes, complex payer requirements, and the demand for faster, more efficient care coordination.

Want to eliminate manual intake processing?

To discuss how Nanonets Health can transform your PAC or SNF’s patient intake workflow and drive efficiency at scale, please reach out to us on health@nanonets.com or book a time with us here.