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by kstrauser6 hours ago |
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upvoteby yonatan80705 hours ago|
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> I guess the equivalent would be if I could ask you to send a PDF to my specific IPv6 address, and you could peer-to-peer shoot it directly to me.

That's not exactly complicated if either party owns a web server. Which - last I checked - the government has.

Just give the person who needs to send the sensitive documents a short link like uploaddocuments.gov, have that page ask for some basic identifying info, and have a box for the user to drag and drop a file. At which point the browser will p2p upload that file over HTTPS.

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upvoteby kstrauser5 hours ago|
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That’s kinda true, but adds a few steps over cmd-P “print to fax”, paste in a phone number, done. And when done, the fax workflow has been tested and approved in courts. It’s a known entity.

I don’t love faxes. This isn’t me saying we should keep them forever. We shouldn’t. Still, there are reasons they’re still widely used for medical stuff today. If CMS or HHS rolled out a new method and told doctor’s offices to start using it if they want to get paid, the industry would switch in a heartbeat. Short of that, any other alternative will take approximately forever.

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upvoteby apical_dendrite4 hours ago|
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We still deal with doctors who handwrite their progress notes. Fax will be around for a very, very long time.
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upvoteby kstrauser4 hours ago|
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Well, that too.
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upvoteby bigbuppo5 hours ago|
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That's a very 1993 understanding of telecommunications.
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upvoteby kstrauser4 hours ago|
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Possibly! I haven’t used my Verizon CO badge to work on telco equipment in a few years. How is it fundamentally different now so that my brief description is wrong? I like to learn new stuff!
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upvoteby UltraSane5 hours ago|
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Most faxes today are between two fax over the Internet services and so are completely pointless.
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upvoteby apical_dendrite4 hours ago|
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Amazingly enough, this is actually not true. Many smaller doctors' offices still have a physical fax machine. I work on automation for certain processes in healthcare and a very large proportion of the faxes we receive come from physical fax machines. You can see artifacts on the fax itself and sometimes the cover letter will have a scribbled note.
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upvoteby UltraSane34 minutes ago|
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Do they still have POTS lines? Telecom companies are shutting down old SS7 switches so eventually all faxes are ultimately being sent over the Internet and it will be entirely vestigial.
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upvoteby kstrauser16 minutes ago|
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The offices I know of do. We have a PBX, and a "bare" POTS line for the fax.
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