GOING ‘PAPERLESS’ (Focus)

One of the great promises of modern business was the emergence of the paperless office. That promise is not a reality just yet. But two Boise companies have come close by building businesses that help reduce the amount of paper we use.

Bridge City Legal converts paper files into a searchable database for its clients. The service is catered exclusively to the legal community.

Organizing paper documents is inefficient, said Shane Sawyer, Bridge City’s senior account manager. Law firms that use Bridge City’s services usually have at least 10,000 pages to process, he said.

But Bridge City hasn’t eliminated its customers’ dependence on paper records.

Some lawyers aren’t comfortable working with information on the computer, so they ask for printed copies after the database has been built.

In the industry, it’s called “blowback,” said Sawyer.

Filling out forms

Ken Gibson, president of Distributed Database Consulting, has built an online application database to help small businesses shop for group health insurance.

His software, called eHealthApp, replaces the paper application.

In the online system he’s created, there’s no paperwork for employees to fill out, which is more efficient and eliminates a lot of human error. And because it’s stored electronically, employees only have to enter their information once.

Currently, a small business owner in Idaho can take advantage of the state’s universal application, said Gibson. Each employee has to fill out four pages. An employer can collect the pages from each employee and pass them on to the broker. A small business has to do this every time it shops for a health plan.

Businesses that keep paper records aren’t making good use of their human resources, Gibson said. The time employees spend filling out forms is time better spent doing real work, he said.

By using eHealthApp, each insurance broker has their own Web site to manage the database. After every employee has entered their information, a broker can log into the database and use the information to get quotes from carriers. Once the carriers have returned their prices, a broker can go back to the company with their quotes.

Gibson charges brokers a flat fee for each application. There are several broker advantages that also get passed on to the applicants, he said. Managing an electronic database costs less than paper. And data is validated as it’s entered, which reduces mistakes.

Because businesses only have to enter their information once, it should be easier for small companies to apply for better rates as often as they like, he said.

Because the software is modeled on the state’s simplified application for small businesses — the same four-page application employees fill out on paper — the software only works with small companies for now. But it could be adapted later for larger groups.

The real savings

But like Bridge City, Gibson hasn’t managed to make the process completely paperless.

After an insurance broker collects employee information from a small business, it has no way of passing on the data to an insurance carrier. So the collected data is printed out and sent to the carrier for a quote.

But Gibson insists that the real savings isn’t in the cost of the paper.

It’s the cost of the time each employee spends filling out an application, he said.

Sawyer doesn’t mind that reprinting a database is often inefficient. As a service company, his focus is on providing whatever Bridge City’s customers want.

“We’re in such a niche market we can do whatever our clients need,” Sawyer said.

The company’s five employees take documents from a firm and scan them into a searchable database. It does so at a fraction of the human and monetary cost, so it’s still more efficient than paper. The company’s goal is to make the legal industry happy by making the databases as easy as possible to use, he said.

With so many documents coming through their office, and so much of it sensitive material, employees are always mindful to maintain their clients’ confidentiality.

It’s not unusual for the company to work both sides of a case, Sawyer said.

Every employee has a confidentiality agreement with Bridge City. But Sawyer said it’s not that hard to maintain privacy.

“Everything’s labeled,” he said. “There’s no co-mingling of documents. And there’s so much paper coming through we don’t read anything.”

Project sizes can vary dramatically, and the schedule isn’t always predictable. It’s not unusual to turn a project around in 24 hours.

Bridge City charges on a per page basis, which makes it difficult for smaller firms to justify because they don’t have as many cases, Sawyer said.

Still, Bridge City has clients who just prefer to have a piece of paper in their hands.

It’s easy to print out a database once it’s created, so the company is willing to oblige them, said Sawyer.

“A lot of people aren’t comfortable with using technology, but as a customer service company we respect their needs,” he said.

Forms, plans

and paperwork

4

No. of pages in the Idaho Universal Health Application for a small business.

200

No. of pages a company with 50 employees would have to submit to shop for a health plan.

Every time

When shopping for a new plan, number of times the same company would have to

resubmit the same paperwork.

1

No. of times the same company would have to resubmit with eHealthApp.