RESEARCH STUDY · HEALTHCARE OPERATIONS
Patient intake forms still get printed, filled out by hand, and scanned back in. Faxed referrals arrive illegible. Prior authorizations sit in queues because someone needs to manually verify what the system should already know. Medical records get requested, lost, and rerequested. You’ve spent years making this work despite the tools, not because of them. We want to understand what’s actually still broken.
WHY WE’RE DOING THIS
Nutrient builds the document infrastructure inside thousands of products — the layer that handles viewing, processing, signing, and exchanging documents across platforms. In healthcare, that means we see the technical side of what breaks. We don’t see what it costs the people managing these workflows every day.
Most healthcare technology research focuses on EHR adoption and clinical workflows. Almost nobody asks the operations teams — the people who process intake forms, chase down authorizations, assemble credentialing packets, and make sure records actually get where they need to go — what’s still not working.
We’re going directly to the people who run document-heavy healthcare processes to understand where the friction lives. The findings will be published as a research report — not a product pitch.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Multiple-choice questions across one workflow you pick, with one free-text field if you want to add context.
We ask for your name and work email so we can send you the report. Everything published is aggregated and de-identified.
Every participant gets the complete research — including data we don’t publish externally — before the report goes public.
Optional 60-minute conversation at the end. If you’d like to go deeper than the survey, we’ll pay $150 for your time.
WHAT WE’RE ASKING ABOUT
Where documents still create delays, risk, and manual work — despite every system promising to eliminate them.
Intake forms that patients fill out by hand and someone rekeys into the system. Consent forms that get printed, signed, scanned, and filed — four steps for one signature. Handwritten notes and prescriptions that need to be deciphered before they can be processed. The paper-to-digital gap isn’t a legacy problem — it’s a daily one.
A patient’s records were sent but never arrived. A referral sits in a fax queue that nobody checks. A prior authorization was submitted but the attachment was corrupted, unreadable, or in a format the payer’s system couldn’t open. When a document goes missing in healthcare, the consequence isn’t an inconvenience — it’s a delayed diagnosis, a denied claim, or a patient who has to start over.
HIPAA isn’t optional, but the way most organizations handle it creates friction at every step. Documents can’t be shared easily. Tools that work for other industries aren’t compliant enough for healthcare. So teams fall back on fax machines, encrypted email chains, and manual redaction — not because it’s the right solution, but because it’s the safe one.
The EHR holds some records. The practice management system holds others. Payer portals, fax servers, shared drives, and email hold the rest. When a document needs to move from one system to another, someone has to carry it — manually downloading, reformatting, reuploading, verifying. The tools were supposed to talk to each other. Most of them still don’t.
Nutrient — the document infrastructure company behind products used by thousands of organizations across industries (formerly PSPDFKit). We build the technology layer that handles document viewing, processing, signing, and exchange inside other platforms. We’re running this research because we want a clearer picture of where document workflows still create friction in healthcare operations. The findings will be published as a research report, not as marketing for a specific product.
De-identified in reporting, yes. The survey asks for your name and work email so we can send you the report. If you opt in to the follow-up call at the end, you’ll also share your LinkedIn URL. None of these are attributed to you in the published report. Results are aggregated and de-identified, and any quoted free-text responses are stripped of identifying details and only used when the pattern shows up across multiple respondents. We don’t share your name, email, LinkedIn, or individual answers with anyone outside the research team.
The survey doesn’t ask for any patient information, protected health information (PHI), or clinical data. We’re asking about your workflows and processes — not about specific patients, cases, or medical records. No PHI is collected at any point.
Less than 10 minutes. Mostly multiple choice, with one short free-text field where you can add context if you want to.
Two things. First, early access to the complete research findings — including data points we don’t publish externally — before the report goes public. Second, if you opt in to a 60-minute follow-up conversation at the end of the survey, we’ll pay you $150 for your time.
Only about the research. The final question asks if you’re open to a follow-up call ($150 for your time) — if you say yes, we’ll reach out to schedule it. You won’t be added to a sales sequence or get a demo request off the back of this survey.
Yes. Document workflow friction exists across the entire healthcare ecosystem — providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies, health IT vendors, and healthcare services companies. If documents slow down your work, your perspective belongs in this research.
Please do. The more healthcare operations professionals we hear from, the more useful the findings. Forward the link to anyone who manages or works in a document-heavy healthcare process.
Less than 10 minutes. De-identified in reporting. Full report plus $150 if you take a follow-up call.
