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Going paperless is a process not an event. At first you will need the paper charts on all your patients as you will be referring to the previous paper entries. As time goes on you will need to refer less and less to the old paper records. After a year all the current x-rays will be digital and all the patients recent entries and treatment plans should be digital. It is now possible to stop pulling charts. However at first you will need to refer to the old charts fairly often for entries or x-rays more than a year old. Eventually you will rarely ever need to pull a chart.

Imagine what it would be like if you never had to pull a paper chart. How much time does it take to pull the charts every day and then re-file them. And of course there is the daily ritual of the lost chart, which no one can find only to have it turn up days later either misfiled or hiding in a stack on the doctor’s desk.