My work recently decided to go paperless. They say it is because they want to help the environment….and to save money.

For whatever reason, it is a decision that I can get behind.





Even though it is something I back 100% the transition has not been easy for me. I like being able to have visual clues, things I can touch to help keep myself organized.

For me out of sight is completely out of mind.





For auditing purposes we have to keep everything on file for 2 years.





For each claim we have to have the appropriate backup. Sometimes claims need 72 pages of backup. With the amount of claims we process each day we were going through a lot of paper. For each claim we have to have the appropriate backup. Sometimes claims need 72 pages of backup. With the amount of claims we process each day we were going through a lot of paper.





Like A LOT OF PAPER.





How we are solving this is by “printing” to PDF and saving everything to a website.





How do you print to PDF?

Here is a how to YouTube video that explains it more thoroughly and more simply than all of my attempts.





I think the whole process is pretty slick and works remarkably well. I think the whole process is pretty slick and works remarkably well.





The only issue that I have is each time you print to PDF you lose some clarity. So if you do it too many times whatever you are printing gets illegible.





The way I avoid this is by planning out what I am going to do, from start to finish so I don’t have to print to PDF too many times.





“Printing” only once is the goal. That way minimal clarity is lost.





This does mean that I sometimes have like 7 to 10 things open all at once, and it does get a little overwhelming, but it is doable.





This is good and bad, I have to slow down and plan each step. So I am less likely to make mistakes now, but I can’t process claims as fast.





I have to have visual cues to help me stay organized. I use to have stacks of paper all over the place and I was constantly shuffling them, now that they are gone I had to find another method.





What I have now is a tracker in Excel. It is much easier and faster to use. Anytime a claim touches my desk it gets added to the tracker. It is constantly open , which makes it a wonderful visual aid for me.





One of the benefits of Excel is it makes searching for specific things very easy (Ctrl-F) and it makes transferring information quick and seamless (Ctrl – C and Ctrl – V).



