A fax number of your own
Choose a local or toll-free US number in Settings → Fax & Referrals. Keeping your old number? Ona ports it, or you forward faxes to your Ona inbox email address.
Faxes & Referrals
eFax and referral management, built into your EHR
Ona's fax and referral inbox gives your practice its own fax number inside the EHR. AI reads every incoming fax, sorts referrals, lab results and prior-authorization responses, and suggests the matching patient. Your team marks up, signs and faxes back, sends chart documents, and tracks every referral and its follow-up in one place.
- Your own fax number
- AI-sorted incoming faxes
- Sign and reply without printing
- Referrals with NPI checks
Ona Faxes & Referrals is eFax and referral management inside Ona, the AI-native practice management platform. Your practice gets its own fax number, and every incoming fax lands in a shared inbox already sorted by AI: referral, lab results or prior-authorization response, with the patient and the sender read off the page and the matching chart suggested.
It's built for the front desk and operations team of practices that still run on fax: referrals and lab results in, records, signed forms and referral letters out. The inbox is for owners, admins and staff, and clinicians sign outgoing referral letters without touching a fax machine.
01 · Why it matters
Fax isn't going away. The busywork can.
Referrals, lab results and payer letters still arrive by fax, and every one has to be read, matched to a patient and acted on.
In most practices that means a shared printer, a stack to sort and a follow-up that lives in someone's memory. A referral sits unread for a week, and a form that needs a signature goes back by printer, pen and scanner.
Ona puts the fax line inside the EHR. The reading, sorting and matching happen before anyone opens the fax, and the reply, the chart copy and the follow-up task are one step each.
02 · What you get
The fax line, inside the chart.
Read and sorted by AI
Each incoming fax is classified as a referral, lab results or a prior-authorization response, with the patient's name, date of birth and contact details and the sending provider read off the page.
Matched, never guessed
Ona ranks likely patients by email, name and date of birth, and phone, with a match score. A person confirms the link, or creates a new patient prefilled from the fax.
Sign and reply without printing
Type on the page, add check marks and today's date, drag your signature into place, add a reply page and send. Save a signed copy to the patient's chart in the same step.
Referrals, read for you
Incoming referrals are read into more than 40 fields, each tied to the page it came from. The referring NPI is checked against the national registry, and diagnoses, medications and allergies wait on the chart for a clinician to confirm.
Fax the chart, track the delivery
Send notes, forms, consents, lab reports and discharge letters from the chart. Referral letters are drafted by AI from the visit and carry up to nine attachments in one fax. Every send shows Queued, Sending, Delivered or Failed.
03 · How it works
From the fax line to the chart.
Get your number
Choose a local or toll-free number in Settings, or have Ona port the number you already use.Let AI sort the inbox
Incoming faxes are classified, the patient and sender are read off the page, and each teammate sees what they haven't read yet.Link it to the patient
Pick the suggested match, search your whole patient list, or create a new patient from the fax. Linked lab results become a lab report on the chart.Act on it
Press R to edit and reply, F to forward, or T to add a task that's already linked to the fax and its patient.Send from the chart
Fax notes, completed forms, lab reports and referral letters from the patient's record, and follow each one to Delivered, or resend it if it fails.
04 · In practice
Where the fax line meets the work.
Front desk
The morning referral stack, already sorted.
Referrals arrive in their own inbox with urgency, reason and the referring provider filled in, and a count of what's still not linked to a patient.
Primary care
Forms back without the printer.
A specialist faxes a form to complete. Type the answers, sign, add a reply page and send it back, with a copy saved to the patient's chart.
Functional & integrative medicine
Lab faxes that land on the chart.
A lab faxes results. Link the patient and the fax becomes a lab report on their chart, read by AI for a clinician to review.
Clinicians
Referral letters with a first draft.
From a visit, Ona drafts the referral letter. Attach the note, labs and signed consents, sign it, and it goes out as one fax.
FAQ
Common questions.
Does Ona include an eFax service?
Yes. Your practice gets its own dedicated fax number inside Ona, local or toll-free in the US, and sends and receives faxes from the Faxes inbox and the patient chart. No fax machine or separate eFax account is needed. Faxes go to US numbers only.
Can I keep my current fax number?
Yes. Ona's team can port your existing fax number to Ona. Or keep your current service and forward incoming faxes by email to your practice's Ona inbox address, and they're read and sorted the same way.
Does Ona file incoming faxes to the right patient automatically?
Ona suggests and a person confirms. AI reads the patient's details off the fax and ranks matching charts by email, name and date of birth, and phone. You link the right one with a click, search the whole list, or create a new patient prefilled from the fax.
How does Ona handle incoming referrals?
Referrals arriving by fax, by email to your inbox address, or uploaded as a PDF are read into structured fields (urgency, reason, referring provider, insurance and more), each linked to its page. The referring NPI is checked against the national registry. When you link the patient, diagnoses, medications and allergies are added to the chart for a clinician to confirm.
Can we sign a document and fax it back?
Yes. Open the fax, choose Edit & reply, add text, check marks or the date, place your signature and send. You can add a reply page with your message, and save the signed copy to the patient's chart.
Can I fax records from the patient chart?
Yes. Notes, completed forms, consents and interviews, lab reports and requisitions, supplement lists and discharge letters can be faxed from the chart, together or as separate faxes. Outgoing referral letters carry up to nine chart documents in one fax. Uploaded files must be PDFs of up to 10 MB each.
Who can see faxes in Ona?
The Faxes and Referrals inboxes, and each chart's Faxes page, are for owners, admins and staff, and each teammate has their own read and unread state. Clinicians draft and sign outgoing referral letters from the visit.
Does Ona retry failed faxes or add a cover page?
Not automatically. A failed fax shows why it failed and can be resent with one click, and the failed attempt stays in Sent for the record. There's no cover-sheet generator. Add a reply page with your message instead.
Ready when you are
Retire the fax machine.
See your own referrals and faxes flow into Ona in a short call.