I've got a small dental practice in Hannover and some patients still send me their documents by fax. My old Canon fax machine is slowly breaking down on me, and I'm wondering whether I should get something new or if that's completely outdated by now.
Check out eFax or similar online fax services - they're cheaper than a new printer, you get a fax number that forwards to your email inbox, and most of your patients won't even notice the difference. And if you need the documents digital anyway for your practice software, it'll save you time on scanning too.
For a dental practice, I'd say yeah, it's still worth it. Sure, plenty of patients send documents by email these days or just bring them along, but especially with older patients or referrals from other doctors, fax still comes up. And in medical fields, fax is sometimes even more popular than elsewhere because it's legally cleaner and meets data protection requirements more easily. If you're getting them regularly, I'd get something new instead of constantly improvising.
When you're getting one though, I wouldn't necessarily recommend some big expensive all-in-one printer. Look into a simple fax solution instead - some practices now use online fax services where faxes come straight to your email as PDFs. That saves you space and you don't have to spend money on new hardware. Usually only costs a few euros a month. Or if you really want a classic machine, any cheap all-in-one from HP or Brother will do just fine - you can get those for 100-150 euros. You really don't need anything fancy for a dental practice.
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