The best EHRs don’t pretend paper is gone — they make sure loose documents are captured and available to coders every day so claims are submitted on time and accurately.
Why paper still matters
Even with rapid EHR adoption, paper remains a persistent part of clinical workflows. The EHR market is large and growing, but adoption does not equal elimination of paper artifacts — labs, outside notes, consents and faxes still arrive on paper and must be reconciled with the electronic chart1.
Epic, Meditech and market context
Large vendors like Epic dominate many health systems, but market share and vendor choice don’t remove the operational reality that external and legacy paper flows persist across deployments23. That means whether you run Epic, Meditech, or a smaller system, you will still face inbound loose documentation that must be attached to the EHR for downstream use23.
Revenue risk when loose documents are missing
When coders can’t see the supporting paper documentation, claims are delayed or coded on assumptions. Delayed submissions stretch days in accounts receivable and increase denial risk; miscoding driven by missing documentation creates exposure to underpayments, overpayments, denials and appeals tied to medical necessity, upcoding and unbundling45. Delayed claims and denials directly impact cash flow and increase administrative cost45.
How big the paper problem is
Paper volume is substantial: industry analyses estimate billions of pages still processed into EHRs annually, and many organizations continue to rely on fax and paper workflows for a large share of inbound documents6. This is not a fringe problem — it’s a system-level gap that affects coding accuracy and timeliness6.
The RCM digital mailroom solution
A reliable fix is a disciplined daily intake process: collect, scan, classify and ingest all loose documentation into the EHR each day. Ricoh’s digital mailroom and healthcare scanning offerings show how this works in practice — high-speed Ricoh scanners at point of service or a centralized mailroom, combined with capture software and routing, reduce manual handling and speed delivery into the EHR789. Add intelligent document processing (IDP) to automatically recognize document type, extract key fields and populate EHR metadata so coders see the right evidence without delay789.
Practical guidance and vendor variability
Paper percentages vary by organization size, specialty and legacy records; smaller and rural sites often have higher paper volumes, while large academic centers may still retain legacy paper archives that must be scanned on demand10. Best practice: implement a daily RCM digital mailroom workflow, measure the percentage of claims delayed for missing documentation, and track first-pass acceptance and denial reasons so you can quantify ROI and reduce days in A/R10.
Actionable next steps: implement point-of-service scanning, deploy Ricoh scanners with IDP for document classification, and run daily ingestion into the EHR so coders always have the evidence they need — reducing delays, denials and revenue leakage7894.
References (10)
1EHR Industry Statistics 2025 By Digital Record Technology. https://media.market.us/ehr-industry-statistics/
2Epic Systems expands EHR market share lead over Oracle Health. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/epic-systems-expands-ehr-market-share-lead-over-oracle-health.html
3Epic’s dominance in 12 numbers – Better Healthcare Policy Group. https://bhcpg.org/epics-dominance-in-12-numbers/
4Delayed Claim Submission in Medical Billing – Causes, Impacts & Prevention. https://amityrcm.com/delayed-claim-submission-causes-impacts-and-prevention-strategies/
510 Common Reasons for Claim Denials and Fixes. https://www.aspectbillingsolutions.com/10-common-reasons-for-claim-denials-and-fixes/
6Documentation Dilemmas: The State of Paper in Health Care: An Analysis …. https://www.fortherecordmag.com/archives/Fall24p6.shtml
7A business owner’s guide to digital mailrooms – Ricoh Scanners. https://www.pfu-us.ricoh.com/guide/digital-mailroom
8Scanning Solutions for Healthcare – Ricoh USA. https://www.ricoh-usa.com/en/industries/healthcare/scanning-solutions-for-healthcare
9Ricoh’s Digital Mailroom | Accelerate your digital transformation. https://www.ricoh-europe.com/products/software-apps/office-software/document-workflow/digital-mailroom/
10Hospitals Use of Electronic Health Records Data, 2015-2017. https://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/page/2019-04/AHAEHRUseDataBrief.pdf
