{"id":12939,"date":"2026-04-29T05:44:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T05:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=12939"},"modified":"2026-04-29T05:44:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T05:44:00","slug":"bevey-miner-consensus-cloud-solutions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=12939","title":{"rendered":"Bevey Miner, Consensus Cloud Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a transcript of my HIMSS interview with Bevey Miner, EVP Healthcare Strategy & Policy at Consensus Cloud Solutions. Usually I\u2019d show the video but in this case my fancy new microphone didn\u2019t work so you\u2019d only hear a one sided conversation. Luckily Youtube\u2019s transcript somewhat came to the rescue\u2013Matthew Holt<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> Another THCB Spotlight, I am here with Bevey Minor who a year ago I interviewed as Consensus Cloud Solutions and now your sign says eFax. So, what the hell happened?<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> Interesting question, Matthew. The company is Consensus Cloud Solutions. And the company\u2019s always been Consensus Cloud Solutions since we spun off and went public ourselves. You\u2019ll notice at our booth we\u2019ve got the eFax brand \u2014 it\u2019s eFax by Consensus Cloud Solutions. The reason we are showing up as eFax is because this year at HIMSS we really wanted to set the record straight: digital cloud faxing is not the problem with interoperability. Paper faxes are, but digital cloud faxing is not the problem.<\/p>\n

The problem is all this unstructured data \u2014 all the unstructured data that happens with faxes, with scanned images, with TIFF images. All that unstructured data can\u2019t be queried. It can\u2019t be part of TEFCA. You can\u2019t query what you can\u2019t find.<\/p>\n

Cloud faxing is send and receive all day long, and we do that very well and have been doing it for 27 years. About three years ago, we introduced an intelligent extraction solution. That solution doesn\u2019t even have to start with the fax, but it allows the \u201cfind\u201d piece to actually become the critical thing that we need to do. CMS defines interoperability as send, receive, find, and integrate. Fax technology handles send and receive all day long, but can\u2019t find. So once we introduced a \u201cfind and intelligent extraction\u201d solution, we can fire up TEFCA.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve talked to a lot of regulators, including Dr. Thomas Keane and Amy Gleason with the CMS Align networks. You can\u2019t ignore this pile of unstructured data and just assume the industry is going to go magically everything\u2019s on FHIR. We\u2019re all using FHIR because all of this stuff has really important patient information in it.<\/p>\n

What we want to solve in the industry is: don\u2019t say we have to axe the digital cloud fax. Let\u2019s axe the paper fax machine. Digital cloud faxing isn\u2019t going away \u2014 in fact, it\u2019s growing, especially as we get rural health off of paper fax machines. The next level of maturity is digital cloud faxing. From there, once it\u2019s digital, now you can do all sorts of things with it.<\/p>\n

When we introduced electronic health records during meaningful use \u2014 I was at Allscripts at the time \u2014 our dream was that we would take this paper record and transform it into an electronic health record, so we could just get rid of the paper. Once we did that and there were discrete data elements in that EHR, we could do population health, clinical decision support, efficacy, all sorts of things \u2014 because there are discrete data elements now inside that electronic health record. That\u2019s what a digital fax will do with the capability to do intelligence on top of it.<\/p>\n

So we want to make the industry understand that the fax is not the problem. Extracting it and getting rid of all that unstructured data is the solution.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> Okay. So since we last talked, I\u2019ve had some journeys around the health care system. I was sent a referral from my lovely primary care doc at One Medical. Somehow the referral from One Medical got into the Blue Shield system and created a prior authorization. So I have an echocardiogram \u2014 I\u2019ve written this up on my blog \u2014 and you know what\u2019s coming next.<\/p>\n

I call the number on the referral that One Medical wants me to call for the Marin Health imaging center, and they go, \u201cWe don\u2019t have any referral.\u201d I say, \u201cNo, no, no, they sent it to you, I see the PDF.\u201d I call back two weeks later and they go, \u201cI don\u2019t know, we don\u2019t have the referral.\u201d So finally I call and say, \u201cCan I email you the referral?\u201d I get someone\u2019s email and email them the PDF and that person goes, \u201cOh, this is a cardiology imaging referral, not a regular imaging referral.\u201d It turns out it goes to cardiology, which is of course in the same building.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s where it gets interesting. They say, \u201cWe can\u2019t take an email\u201d \u2014 they\u00a0 told it was because HIPAA wouldn\u2019t allow it.. So I downloaded some fax product \u2014 I think it may have been eFax \u2014 a trial that later I had to remember to cancel. So I fax everything. Now they\u2019ve got a referral which was typed on a PDF, and may or may not have a piece of paper somewhere with the prior auth as well. It\u2019s arrived, and now they can actually do something with it.<\/p>\n

What is wrong with that picture, and what can eFax do in that picture to fix it and get the data out that\u2019s required to help?<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> A lot of things are wrong. Number one, you\u2019re going to get delayed treatment. You\u2019re going to get frustrated as a patient, and your health outcomes \u2014 you may even abandon care.<\/p>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> That\u2019s actually what almost happened. I was about to abandon it. I did keep going \u2014 I actually do have a problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> But your health outcomes could have been horrific. But you bring up a really interesting use case that we are doing today with imaging centers. Hospitals that own their imaging centers, or IDNs that own imaging centers \u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matthew<\/strong>: this imaging center, by the way, has both cardiology imaging and regular imaging in the same building, but those are different fax numbers.<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong>\u00a0 So as an example \u2014 and this is an actual real use case we\u2019re doing \u2014 we intercept the fax, we pull out all the structured data: all the patient demographic information, we pull out what the order is for. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s a mammogram with contrast. We map it into the radiology system so they can see the order without anyone data-entering anything. If it had come as a fax order, somebody still has to data-enter it, or it\u2019s sitting in a pile of all these orders they\u2019ve received.<\/p>\n

Once it\u2019s extracted and mapped into the imaging center\u2019s RIS system, they can see \u2014 because we read that this isn\u2019t just a mammogram, this is a mammogram with contrast. Now they can see: do we have a machine capable of a mammogram with contrast? Is that machine available on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? And once all that\u2019s done, no human has actually touched this. It\u2019s getting looked at and mapped into their scheduling system, so you can send a text message directly to the patient within 24 hours: \u201cWe\u2019ve got your order and we have opportunities for you to come in Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of that is because we pulled out the structured data from that fax for that image. And for every day that a patient expected to get the next level of care but is delayed \u2014 a mammogram or some sort of imaging \u2014 25% of trust in the system is eroded. That imaging center needs to get that referral because it\u2019s their lifeblood. The patient is going to go somewhere else, or they could just say to the doctor, \u201cThey haven\u2019t called me \u2014 find another place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthew: <\/strong>So if they had plugged in eFax somewhere in the middle of that workflow, the referral would have been intercepted, read, and automatically routed.<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> The product that does that is called Clarity \u2014 that\u2019s our AI data extraction piece. And once you\u2019ve created all these discrete data elements, if the imaging center needed it in FHIR so it could be mapped, we can send that as a FHIR message. We have a semantic interface backbone. Once you\u2019ve got all this extracted data, now you can do prompt-based queries on it \u2014 for example, \u201cShow me all patients who need imaging with contrast because those machines are sitting unused and we need to get those patients in fast.\u201d And then you can use prompt questions like on any generative AI solution<\/p>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> I\u2019ll tell you something amusing that leads to another question. Eventually after the fax goes through, somebody calls me back \u2014 and of course I don\u2019t answer, it goes to voicemail. I see the transcription of the voicemail and they\u2019ve arranged for me the very next available appointment, which happens to be in Santa Rosa \u2014 an hour from my house. So I go to MyChart thinking maybe I can change it. MyChart shows me the appointment but doesn\u2019t give me the option to change it \u2014 only to cancel it. Eventually I got it changed to a location 10 minutes from my house.<\/p>\n

But this leads to a question. You have faxes going back and forth between these departments, and this one is still very manually treated \u2014 manual appointment scheduling.But there is a whole lot of data in the EMR (Epic, Oracle, et al)\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of information sitting in there, with people trying to get it in and out by different methods, not all electronic. How does what you\u2019re doing play into that?<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> What\u2019s interesting is that there\u2019s a really big effort around patient access to their data. MyChart is an example. This administration \u2014 Trump\u2019s promise and campaign was that every American would be able to access their medical information. And now we have a bunch of pledges happening around patient access to their data, with QR codes and things like that. But what do you do with all the unstructured data? A patient may have lab results, clinical information \u2014 the USCDI data set that gives the patient their entire history and summary \u2014 sitting in unstructured data that can\u2019t be queried.<\/p>\n

So the QHINs are only operating on a small subset of data that is FHIR-enabled structured data. It\u2019s going to be biased, it\u2019s going to have missing pieces. Patients are going to think, \u201cHere\u2019s all the information I need\u201d \u2014 until they drill down and say, \u201cTwo years ago my hemoglobin A1C was pre-diabetic, I want to find that.\u201d And it\u2019s an unstructured PDF somewhere.<\/p>\n

When you look at an electronic health record, there\u2019s a lot of PDFs attached to the patient\u2019s chart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> I was just looking at mine. Both One Medical and Epic pieces have different structures. Some of them they processed internally and show me my lab numbers with a nice little indicator, but I\u2019m not sure they\u2019re all in one place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bevey: <\/strong>We have a lot of work to do to get a common record for patients. I have two MyChart accounts. It\u2019s easy to link them, but I also see another system that uses FollowMyHealth or something like that, and it\u2019s not integrating as it should.<\/p>\n

I know the promise is great \u2014 I remember the days, and you probably do too, Matthew, where every patient was going to carry around a USB drive or a magical smart card.<\/p>\n

Matthew: <\/strong>You can do that in France. Probably not available in America.<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> But I do think there\u2019s promise, and the promise is to really recognize that there\u2019s a whole bunch of data. I look around at a lot of these companies here at HIMSS and they boast they do workflow enhancements, prior authorizations, population health \u2014 but when I ask them what they\u2019re doing with all the unstructured data, they say, \u201cWe have an OCR solution.\u201d Whenever I hear that, it\u2019s not really extracting data at an intelligent level. OCR knows that something is a B, a V, and a Y \u2014 my first name \u2014 but doesn\u2019t even know it\u2019s a name. If you use intelligent extraction, it does contextual work: \u201cGo find me the name of this patient in this form,\u201d which could be in the upper left-hand corner or the bottom. It really understands how to ask the right kind of questions. OCR is a gap.<\/p>\n

So we are playing a role where we can create very sophisticated intelligence off of all this unstructured data, so many of these workflow solutions can have better data going in.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve talked to Dr. Thomas Keane, head of ONC, and I said: \u201cDo you really want to make TEFCA successful? You\u2019ve got to talk about how we manage getting all the unstructured data into a FHIR-enabled TEFCA framework.\u201d And rural health \u2014 health equity has been a passion of mine \u2014\u00a0 Rural health can\u2019t rip and replace. They can\u2019t support all the FHIR-enabled solutions they\u2019re supposed to support. The CDC in their data modernization initiative is saying all electronic case reporting has to be done via FHIR \u2014 well, the community clinic definitely needs to populate these repositories, otherwise those databases are going to be completely biased.<\/p>\n

And if you look at the prior authorization rule 57 going live January 1st for Medicare Advantage patients \u2014 what is that substance abuse clinic that needs to ask for an authorization so a patient can stay in treatment for another 90 days? They can\u2019t send a FHIR-enabled prior authorization to get that approved. We intercept their fax. We say to them \u2014 and we do a lot in rural health \u2014 \u201cJust keep doing what you\u2019re doing. We\u2019ll intercept it in the middle and send that as a FHIR prior authorization.\u201d The industry needs to understand that not every provider has tech equity.<\/p>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> Alright, give me your forecast. There are all these different holes \u2014 unstructured data, ambient AI, people asking CharGPT questions. Do you think the consumer, patient, smaller provider (or any provider) experience gets a lot better in two years, or are we still fighting this? Is Amy Gleason\u2019s team going to succeed, or are we still going to be in a war in five years\u2019 time?<\/p>\n

Bevey:<\/strong> I still think healthcare is transactional. If everybody was in a closed system, everybody talked Epic, it would be great. But we don\u2019t have that kind of system. And this is an administration of deregulation \u2014 open for whatever you think you can do from an innovation perspective. When you have tight regulation, you see solutions emerge that actually help providers and technology companies satisfy that regulation \u2014 which is happening with prior authorization, which is why we\u2019re really helpful for those that don\u2019t have FHIR resources.<\/p>\n

But with deregulation and pledges, I think in two years if you gave me the same interview, we would see some baby steps. And also because there\u2019s a growing consciousness among patients \u2014 \u201cI can actually do a lot with AI. I can push hard on my docs. I can say this is the best treatment.\u201d And not always use Western medicine to do that. Patients are going to hold a ton of power, and with that power they\u2019re going to say, \u201cI have a responsibility to take care of my health.\u201d I think that\u2019s going to move faster than we even thought, especially with ChatGPT Health, Gemini \u2014 patients are using these tools. They\u2019re reading their reports and asking questions.<\/p>\n

Matthew: <\/strong>I\u2019ve uploaded a lot of my reports from my imaging and I now use it all the time.\u00a0 But you know, there are people who have been dragging their feet, and a couple of years into this, it\u2019s starting to feel like fantasy being repeated three or four years in a row. So I\u2019m hopeful, but I\u2019ll acknowledge the joke of the moment. I do think there\u2019s a lot of consensus that we\u2019ve got to get some stuff done.<\/p>\n

You and I have been doing this long enough to remember when you could go anywhere with your data, and now everyone else is fighting over information blocking.<\/p>\n

Bevey: <\/strong>\u00a0The patients don\u2019t care what the pipes look like at the back end. The docs don\u2019t even care. The docs are saying, \u201cI don\u2019t care what you do as a technology vendor. I don\u2019t need to see all the stuff flowing through. I just need information so I can make a more informed decision, treat my patients the best way, and make money doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to have some headwinds where a lot of hospital systems are going to have to deal with uncompensated care. HIMSS is a little light this year, and I think hospitals are looking at budgets and saying, \u201cWe can\u2019t give you the same IT budget to go shopping. We\u2019re going to have to shut down service lines \u2014 behavioral health, women\u2019s health \u2014 just to manage the uncompensated care.\u201d That\u2019s a new world we never thought we\u2019d see. But I think we\u2019ve got to weather through that too.<\/p>\n

Matthew:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been speaking with Bevey Miner from Consensus Cloud Solutions, Thanks for your time<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a transcript of my HIMSS interview with Bevey Miner, EVP Healthcare Strategy & Policy at Consensus Cloud Solutions. Usually I\u2019d show the video but in this case my fancy new microphone didn\u2019t work so you\u2019d only hear a one sided conversation. Luckily Youtube\u2019s transcript somewhat came to the rescue\u2013Matthew Holt Matthew: Another THCB…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}