Home office fax setup

[SueC]

I think there are at least a few people here that probably have a fax machine at home. I've got a question--do you set your fax to answer after more rings than your answering machine or less? I just got off with customer support at HP and the guy told me that if my machine picks up after 4 rings, I should set my fax to pick up at 6 rings--does that sound right? He assured me that the fax would still figure it out after the machine picks up that it is a fax coming in. I had it at one ring so it would catch it before the machine picks up (when there is a message it picks up after 2), but he said that is causing me my problem. For some reason, my fax doesn't always connect and I'm losing faxes which is about to drive me over the edge of sanity. I'm going to try it at 6 rings and see if I notice an improvement, but was wondering how everyone else has their machine set up.

I have gone around and around on this.
My feeling is that, yes, your fax SHOULD be able to tell after the answering machine picks up.....but it doesn't, right?!?
After I switched to voicemail (rather than an answering machine) it made the whole fax thing a moot point. My fax can't pick up once the VM answers.
I don't get a whole lot of faxes and try not to give out a fax number but make people ask for it. Then I use my caller ID to tell when a fax is coming in and just do it manually.
But it sounds like you do a lot more faxing than I do and might have faxes coming in at random times. And you don't want to be leashed to your fax all day. For the sake of your sanity, I would suggest just getting a dedicated fax line (cheapest phone line available with no extras) and writing it off as a business expense.
Another thing you could try....does your fax have a built in answering machine? Those seem to work a whole lot better when it is a coordinated effort within one piece of equipment.
It gets so complicated!

[SueC]

Hmmm, those are good ideas. I'm not sure if my fax has an answering machine, but I will check into it. I've debated on getting a 2nd phone line for awhile now, and now maybe is the time. In the past I've beeen too cheap, but my client faxes me lots of stuff throughout the day (you're right, it is too frequent for me to do it manually) and I think it makes me look very unprofessional when the damn thing doesn't pick up sometimes!!!

and I think it makes me look very unprofessional when the damn thing doesn't pick up sometimes!!!

Well, sometimes faxes just don't go through so don't be too hard on yourself. But it is a lot easier to pull off the illusion of an actual office when they work on a regular basis! (That and not having a screaming child in the background! Is the only time she needs something when I am on a long-distance call?).

Even though we have an all in one machine, we rarely use the fax because it is such a pain. DH decided to use efax to receive all of his incoming faxes and use ours for outgoing. The efax is free as long as you don't send faxes through their service. HTH.

I totally forgot about efax. I almost switched to that when I went from a multi-purpose printer to my current printer. I was able to get a used fax machine for next to nothing so decided to go with a physical machine.

I've heard mixed reviews on the efax. Some people love it and have no problems while others aren't quite as lucky. I would definitely check the reviews on efax services -- on epinions.com or some where like that. One thing to consider (not a huge deal) is that you would likely get a fax number that is NOT in the same area code as your phone. It would probably cost you less than getting another phone line installed in your office.

[SueC]

I had thought about efax way back before I had a fax machine, but I'm not sure how HIPAA compliant it is (all the stuff coming to me has patient information on it). I'll look into that as well, though, to see if it might work for me.

[DCJenn]

All of my co-workers and I have eFax through the Feds, so it must be HIPPA compliant. (or CMS is in big trouble, I guess.) Personally, I think it sucks. I would much rather that they send me faxes to Kinkos than eFax things to me. I can't read a majority of the stuff that is sent.

Just my opinion!

Jenn