To locate the electronic fax number assigned to you by Elation, log in to your Elation EHR account and then click on the “Fax Inbox” at the top of the Practice Home page. The 10 digit number you see is your electronic fax number with Elation. Faxes to this fax number will automatically appear as images in your Fax Inbox.
No, you do not need to have an electronic fax number with Elation in order to send faxes from the patient’s chart. Outbound faxes use fax numbers that are different from your Elation electronic fax number. Elation’s outbound fax numbers start with the ‘650’ area code.
The Referral form, which is available via the "Referral" button at the top of a patient's chart, has additional fields for you to store information that is normally required for a patient referral such as the reason for referral, diagnosis codes and prior authorization information. Only Provider Level Users and their Referral Delegates can sign Referrals.
The Letter to Provider, which is available via the “Letter” —> “To Provider” button at the top of a patient's chart, is used for more generic correspondence such as sharing patient records between care settings. Any user can sign Letters.
The Letter to Patient, which is available via the “Letter” —> “To Patient” button at the top of a patient's chart, is used for communication between your practice and patients who have active Patient Passport accounts. Any user can sign Letters. Learn more about the Patient Passport feature in our Elation Patient Passport Guide and FAQ.
Use the “Letter” —> “To Patient” option at the top of the patient’s chart to send a Letter/message to a Patient via Patient Passport. You will be able to attach records (like visit notes, labs results, and handouts) to the Letter to share with the patient.
Important Note: Patients must register for Patient Passport in order to see your message. Learn more about the Patient Passport feature in our Elation Patient Passport Guide and FAQ.
Use the “Letter” —> “To Provider” option at the top of the patient’s chart to fax patient information to another office or facility. In the Letter, type the recipient’s fax number in the To: field. You can optionally save the number as a new contact for future use.
Use the “Letter” —> “To Provider” option at the top of the patient’s chart to securely email patient information to another provider or office. First type in the recipient’s name in the To: field to find them in the Elation Provider Directory and then click “Edit” to store their email address in the Email field. If you cannot find the recipient in the Elation Provider Directory, follow the instructions in the Creating New Contacts Guide to create a contact for them.
Yes, you can use the “Post Date” field to schedule the Letter/Referral to be sent on a specific date in the future. The message will be delivered at 12:00 am Pacific on the date you specify. For example, if you select June 1, 2023 as the post date then your message will be delivered on June 1, 2023 at 12:00 am.
Yes, by default, Elation will apply the header that you chose under the Print Headers Settings as your preferred header. You can also change the Print Header for specific Letters/Referrals by selecting a different Print Header from the “Print Header” listed in the Letter/Referral.
Click here to learn more about customizing Print Headers for your practice.
The ‘Unread Alert’ Setting in Letters/Referrals is only applicable if the recipient is an Elation EHR provider, Provider Portal user or Patient Passport user. Elation will alert you at the timeframe you specify if the recipient has not opened your Letter/Referral in their own account. This allows you to follow up with the recipient to make sure they receive your communication.
Elation EHR providers have a logo next to their name.
Elation Provider Portal users have a or (P) logo next to their name.
No, only one recipient can be added to each Letter/Referral. If you need to send a Letter/Referral to more than one person, please create additional Letters or Referrals.
Because outbound faxes need to be associated with a patient chart, you can create a fake chart with the first name 'Outbound' and last name 'Faxes' and create Letters within this chart.
Yes, Elation allows you to send Direct Messages through Referral and Provider Letters. Learn more about the Direct Messaging feature in our Direct Messaging Guide.
To create a generic Letter that you want to print out for a patient (such as permission for a leave of absence or a clearance for physical activity), simply put 'To Whom It May Concern' in the To: field of the Letter and proceed with drafting the Letter. Then you can click one of the "Print" options to print a copy for the patient to take with them.
When sending patient information to an external provider or medical organization, we recommend choosing from providers and/or organizations in the Elation Provider Directory and using the contact information in the database to send them patient records. Read this Provider Directory Guide for more details on how to use contacts from the Provider Directory.
You can also create your own contacts for those who are not providers or medical organizations but you frequently interact with them. Reference the Adding New Contacts for Letters and Referrals article for instructions on how to create your own contacts
For recipients who you do not frequently contact, you can enter any 10 digit national fax number in the To: field to send a fax. However, if your fax has more than 20 pages of attachments then you must create a contact for them in order to send the fax.
The Letter to Provider and Referral features are not intended to be used to communicate with patients.
Instead, use the "Letter" —> "To Patient" feature to communicate with a patient via the Patient Passport feature. The patient will be automatically assigned as the contact when a Patient Letter is created. Learn more about the Patient Passport feature in our Elation Patient Passport Guide.
Follow the instructions in this article to learn how to create a contact for providers or organizations. There is a video that walks you through the process as well.
Elation Provider Portal contacts have a or (P) logo next to their name. When you use this contact in a letter/referral, Elation will send letter/referral and attachments to their Provider Portal account.
Providers in the Elation Provider Directory have a logo next to their name. When you use this contact in a letter/referral, Elation will send letters/referral and attachments to the Direct Address on file for them (if available) or send the letter/referral and attachments as a fax to the fax number tied to their contact.
Contacts with a logo next to their name are custom contacts created by your practice. When you use this contact in a letter/referral, Elation will send the letter/referral and attachments based on the contact information you saved for the contact. Learn more about how the contact information is used here.
To edit a contact's information, click on the "Edit" button next to their name. After you have edited their information, click "Save" to save your changes.
Important Note: You will not be able to edit contact information for Providers from Elation’s Provider Directory. Use the “use a different address”, “use a different phone” or “use a different fax” buttons to add preferred contact information for Providers from Elation’s Provider Directory. Elation will use the fax number you stored in the Preferred Fax number field to send your faxes to that contact.
If the provider is part of Elation's Provider Directory (you will see a logo next to their name), their contact information will be locked and you will not be able to make any changes on your own. Fill out this Contact Support Form, tell us what information the updated information should be and we will make the changes for you.
Alternatively, you can use the “use a different address”, “use a different phone” or “use a different fax” buttons to add preferred contact information for Providers from Elation’s Provider Directory. Elation will use the fax number you stored in the Preferred Fax number field to send your faxes to that contact.
Contacts that are part of Elation’s Provider Directory (you will see a, , or logo next to their name) cannot be deleted from the Provider Directory database.
Custom contacts that you create (you will see a or logo next to their name) can be deleted.
Important Note: Take caution when deleting a custom contact with a (P) logo next to their name. These contacts are Provider Portal users which means they have a secure account they can use to communicate with your office and share patient records. If you delete their contact then you will no longer be able to send records to the Provider Portal connected to that contact and the recipient will need to create a new Provider Portal if you continue to send them Letters or Referrals.
To delete a custom contact from your practice’s private database:
Open a "Letter" —> "To Provider"
Go to the To: field and search for the name of the custom contact you want to delete and then select their name
Click on the “Edit” button next to the contact’s name
Click the “Delete Profile” button at the top of Profile Details
By default, the Clinical Profile and Patient Demographics is automatically attached to Referral drafts. No records are automatically attached to Letters drafts.
To attach all records in the patient’s chart to a Letter/Referral draft, click the “Attach Everything in Chart” button towards the bottom of the Letter/Referral.
To attach individual records in the patient’s chart to a Letter/Referral draft:
Click the “Select Chart Items to Attach” button
The Most Recent records you can attach will be displayed first. You can also choose specific records from the chart to attach by selecting a record category in the left column.
User Tip: You cannot attach records that are still in Requiring Actions or Outstanding Items.
Check off records you want to attach & then click "Attach Items”
You can download your patient’s full chart by using the "Letter" —> "To Provider" feature. Learn more about the workflow on our Patient Chart Guide page.
When adding attachments to a Letter/Referral draft, you will not be able to filter for records by a specific time frame. We recommend scanning through the Attachments window to manually select each item that is relevant.
To remove an attachment from a Letter/Referral draft, click on the “x” button next to the name of the attachment in the 'Attachments' section of the Letter/Referral.
Up to 20 pages of documents can be faxed per Letter to Provider or Referral. If you are sharing more than 20 pages of documents with recipients, you can:
break up the attachments into multiple Letters or Referrals
No, the cover page and body of the Letter/Referral are not included in the 20 page count for drafted Letters/Referrals. All other attachments will be counted towards the 20 page limit.
The reason we limit faxes to 20 pages in a single fax is because faxing via voice-over-IP fails more often when the fax transmission is too large. We do apologize for the inconvenience but this is not a feature we plan to change.
If you have a letter with 20 or more attachments, the recipient will only receive 2 pages; a cover page and a page with instructions on how to retrieve the documents online. Please reference this help center article for more details on how the recipient can view the records online. If you need to fax more than 20 pages, you must break up the documents into multiple faxes.
Limiting your faxes will also help you save money since each Standard Provider User is only allotted 1,500 free pages in combined inbound and outbound faxes each month. Any additional pages used per month will be charged at $0.07 per page. Elation processes fax overage charges on the first business day of each month for last month's fax usage. Here is a helpful article about fax usage that you can use for reference.
The interactive chart automation can only be removed if you send the fax to a plain 10 digit fax number (in other words, the To: field only has the fax number, ex. 555-394-1298). This workflow will only support up to 20 pages of attachments for a single fax transmission. If you need to fax more than 20 pages of attachments, you must break up the attachments into multiple Letters or Referrals or create a contact.
Only signed records can be attached to Letters and Referrals. Please have the provider sign any documents or notes in Requiring Action or Outstanding Items if you need to attach them to Letters or Referrals.
If your Letter or Referral has more than 20 pages attached, you can only send the Letter or Referral to an ‘Individual’ type contact. Edit the contact’s information and select ‘Individual’ instead of an ‘Organization’ and then you will be able to send the Letter or Referral.
The Referral Form is specifically used to patient referrals to other care settings and does not require a subject line. Use the Reason field to provide context for Referral.
Certain Referrals, depending on the patient's insurance company's requirements, require you to disclose the reason for the Referral, therefore Elation has provided you with a list of common referral reasons for ease of documentation.
Certain Referrals require prior authorization from the patient's insurance company before a Referral can be created. The Auth. # field allows you to store the Prior Authorization Number provided by the insurance company for pre-approved referrals.
Yes, Provider Level Users can allow staff to sign Referrals on their behalf by adding the individual to their Authorized Referrals Delegate Settings from their own Elation accounts. Provider Level Users can assign Referrals delegates by following the instructions in this article: User Accounts Guide- Utilizing authorized staff delegates.
Important Note: As best practice, only select Staff Level Users as delegates. If a Provider Level User selects another Provider Level User as a delegate, the selected Provider Level User will not be able to assign their own delegate permissions.
Only Provider Level Users can sign Referrals. Staff Level Users cannot sign Referrals unless they are an authorized Referrals delegate. If you are a Staff Level User, the "Sign" buttons will be grayed out and you can only draft Referrals for providers to sign. If you need permission to sign Referrals on behalf of a provider, ask the provider to make you a Referrals delegate by following the instructions in this article: User Accounts Guide- Utilizing authorized staff delegates.
To reuse the Reason of an old Referral for a new Referral for the same patient, find the old Referral in the patient's chart and click "Actions" —> "Reorder". A new Referral draft will open up with the Reason prefilled for your convenience.
You have 4 options for completing your Provider Letter:
"Sign & Send"= Sends the Provider Letter
"Sign & More" —> "Sign, Send & Print Pt Copy"= Sends the Provider Letter & prints the body of the Letter without attachments
"Sign & More" —> "Sign & Print w/attachments"= Sends the Provider Letter & prints the entire Provider Letter; body of the Letter with attachments
"Sign & More" —> "Sign, Send & Create Follow-up Letter"= Sends the Provider Letter & starts a new draft for the same recipient to assist with follow up
If a fax fails to send, the sender will automatically receive a notification in their Urgent inbox in their Practice Home page. The notification will include the error message disclosed by our fax provider and an expandable details section that provides additional context about the error along with troubleshooting instructions. Here is an example of what the error message and expandable details section looks like for one the error messages:
Important Note: The ‘sender’ is defined as the following:
For Referrals= The Provider Level User that sent the fax. If the Referral was sent by a staff delegate then the Letter will appear in the delegating Provider Level User’s inbox.
For Letters to Providers= The user that sent the fax, regardless of their user level.
When your fax fails to send, the sender will automatically receive a notification in their Urgent inbox in their Practice Home page. The notification will include the error message we received from our fax provider and an expandable details section that provides additional details about the error along with troubleshooting instructions.
Click the “Tell Me More” button at the top of the notification to see the context about why the fax failed. Follow the troubleshooting instructions to resend the fax by clicking “Actions” -> “Refax” or reach out to Elation Support for assistance.
If you do not wish to resend the fax, click the “Acknowledge” button to dismiss the notification.
Elation will attempt to resend the fax up to 5 times in a 30 second period. If Elation is unable to successfully complete the transmission, the fax will be marked as 'Failed' and will appear in the sending provider's Urgent inbox.
It can take up to 20 minutes for the Sent/Failed status to appear in the patient’s chart. This is due to the latency time between the various communication attempts between Elation and our fax provider.
You must create a new Letter or Referral with the new fax number in order to send the information you want to send to the new fax number. You will not be able to edit the fax number of previous fax transmissions, even if it failed to send.
Elation uses Voice Over IP for faxing, which is the method of faxing documents using internet connection. Voice Over IP faxing breaks down the fax into “packets” of data, and sends them out in chunks. If the transmission is interrupted (which commonly occurs regardless of faxing method), it only takes a few consecutive interrupted packets to reach the failure threshold and this will cause the fax to fail. If the receiving line is busy receiving other faxes at the same time your fax is sent, this will increase the likelihood of the transmission failing which is why you may need to retry a few times.
If the recipient has a functioning fax number but faxing to them occasionally fails, we recommend trying the following:
Call the number to confirm a proper fax tone right before you attempt to send the fax.
A healthy fax tone is clear, high pitched and devoid of static
A healthy fax tone may ring like a normal telephone 2-3 times prior to the fax tone
If the fax continues to fail even though you have verified a healthy fax tone we recommend:
Asking the recipient if they can adjust the settings on their fax machine to allow for longer fax transmissions
Asking the recipient if they are having issues receiving faxes in general (i.e. line issues, jams, out of ink)
If you continue to have trouble faxing, please contact the Support Team by filling out an ‘I need help’ form from the top of your Elation account in the patient’s chart and send us the details listed in the "Tell Me More" section of the failed fax notification. You can also contact Support by clicking here and filling out our contact form.
The ‘Sent’ status displays when our Fax Provider notifies us that the fax transmission was successfully completed (100% with no interruptions). This means the fax has reached the intended fax number on file.
Usually if the recipient says they did not receive the fax it is because they misplaced it or they did not recognize the communication is from your office. We recommend asking the recipient to check their fax inbox for a fax that looks like this:
The ‘Opened’ and ‘Unopened’ statuses appear instead of the ‘Fax Sent’ status if the recipient is an Elation EHR provider or Provider Portal user. This means the recipient has access to a secure account (such as the Elation EHR or the Provider Portal) to view records you sent them. For this reason, we tell you if the recipient has opened the communication in their account.
Elation EHR providers have a logo next to their name.
Elation Provider Portal users have a or (P) logo next to their name.
To locate the Provider Security Code that Contacts with email addresses need, click on your email at the top of your Elation account and then click "Provider Security Code".
The reference code that is sent to Contacts with a fax number is generated via an automation and senders will not be able to see the code. Only the recipient can see the reference code in the Cover Page of the fax and in the Body Page of the Letter/Referral:
Recipients with Provider Portal accounts can login via https://app.elationemr.com using their login email and password and view all records ever sent to them
Recipients with Provider Portal accounts who do not remember their login emails can go to https://app.elationemr.com/efax/locate-account/ to locate their accounts with their last name and fax number
Yes, you can use the “Letter” -> “To Patient” feature to send a Letter to any patient as long as they have an email address and mobile phone number on file. The email address and phone number on file will allow a patient to create a Patient Passport account to view any Letters you send them via the secure patient portal. Learn more about the Patient Passport feature in our Elation Patient Passport Guide.
To prevent a patient from replying to a message thread in a Patient Letter, find the Patient Letter in their chart and click the button that is labeled with “End Conversation”.
You can use the Bulk Letter feature to send a message to all patients who have an active Patient Passport account or who are eligible to create one. Learn more about the Bulk Letter feature here.
