How one family doctor recovered precious time with Hush™ Secure Forms

When he was a child, Dr. Robert Azurin knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up — a doctor like his father.

“I was just one of those rare kids — I knew from the time I was, like, two years old, watching my dad practice medicine, that's what I wanted to do,” said Dr. Azurin.

His father, Dr. Narcisco Azurin, owned and operated Tweedy Medical Group, a primary care practice in South Gate, California. The practice has been in the Azurin family since 1983 when the senior Dr. Azurin acquired it.

Dr. Robert Azurin - Tweedy Medical Group

When Dr. Robert Azurin’s dreams were finally realized in 2015, and he started practicing medicine in his father’s clinic, he took his responsibility to his patients seriously. After all, he’d known some of them for most of his life. “There are patients I've known since I was like three or four years old that are still coming to the clinic,” he said.

With such a long history in the area, deep relationships often develop between doctor and patient.

“I try to practice medicine the way I watched my dad practice medicine, which is that you're not just there to do labs and dispense pills, but you're there to be a confidant and friend to your patient and help guide them through life,” said Dr. Azurin. “I take a lot of pride in that.”

However, Dr. Azurin knew the practice would need to update its systems. At the time, most patients contacted the clinic by phone, and new patients submitted their medical information through paper forms. These forms, in turn, were scanned and uploaded into the clinic’s electronic health records system (EHR).

These processes cost the hectic practice precious time.

The need for online security

Dr. Azurin began to take a more significant role in managing Tweedy Medical Group. He wanted to extend the quality of care patients received in the doctor’s office to the virtual world by ensuring their privacy was just as well protected online as it was in the office.

At the time, his parents had been running the practice, but Dr. Azurin said they weren’t tech-savvy.

If patients wanted to email Dr. Azurin, they would use a generic email address hosted by a provider that wasn’t very secure. As a result, Dr. Azurin often felt uncomfortable asking patients to email him. This prompted his search for a new email provider.

But it was another one of Hushmail’s service offerings that sold Dr. Azurin on Hushmail — secure online forms. “That was one of the main selling points,” he said.

Dr. Azurin said he liked the fact the forms seemed easy to use and that he could set them up by himself.

Setting up Hush™ Secure Forms

Dr. Azurin began experimenting with Hush™ Secure Forms right after signing with Hushmail.

“As soon as it was set up, I went playing with all the features,” he said. “It’s really easy; you just drag and drop.”

And when he did have some questions, Hushmail was ready to help. “Getting in touch with customer support was really easy,” he said.

Since he was also setting up a new website for the clinic at the time, it made sense to embed a Hush™ Secure form on it from the start.

Dr. Azurin uses two forms on his website. One is a Secure Contact form that collects a patient’s name, date of birth, email address, and phone number. It also provides a space for patients to enter a personal message.

The other, a Secure File Transfer form, is used to obtain confidential medical documents. Patients simply fill out their names and contact information, then attach medical records or other files. When Dr. Azurin’s office receives the files, they can be uploaded straight to their EHR.  Since this type of information is often submitted by fax, the Secure File Transfer form can also help to reduce incoming faxes.

Dr. Azurin has seen positive results in his staff and patients after using Hush™ Secure Forms.

Dr. Azurin also relied on Hushmail’s online forms to treat patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time, he had started a “concierge COVID testing company” and would sometimes treat patients who tested positive.

But, seeing patients in person was difficult. Dr. Azurin explained, “Sometimes I wouldn't have time to necessarily go to someone's house.”

Most people agreed to do telephone visits, but he needed to obtain their consent quickly and without seeing them in person.

Hush™ Secure forms filled this need. “To be able to just send a link to the form via email to someone and have them send it back just made my life so much easier,” he said.

Helping more people with confidence

Although Dr. Azurin is very busy with his current responsibilities, there is more he’d like to do.

He strongly believes in supporting the medically underserved population of South Gate —so strongly that he created a charity, partially funded with his own money, that helps pay for medications people can’t otherwise afford.

“You have people who are diabetics that have commercial insurance through their employer, but it doesn't pay for anything,” Dr. Azurin explained. “To have people trying to decide between paying for their diabetic medications or putting food on the table, it’s really tough to see.”

Dr. Azurin’s charity supports about 40 people so far, but he would like to provide medical care to more people in need. That’s why he’s planning to start the process of becoming qualified as a federally qualified health center (FQHC).

“Being qualified as an FQHC, the government would give some grants and subsidies to help make improvements in the clinic, which would also help provide me with more liquidity to be able to take on other doctors and more staff at the office,” said Dr. Azurin.

A growing practice will demand more efficiency, but Dr. Azurin won’t need to worry: Hush™ Secure Forms already makes new patient intake and obtaining patient medical information quick and easy for everyone involved.