Handwritten Forms Clutter the Move Toward a Paperless Society

We’re only a few days into 2008, and I’ve already been caught off guard twice this year by something I thought went away back when the first Matrix was still in theaters: the handwritten form. Do companies really still ask us to fill in boxes with black or blue ink and later have someone else decipher our scribble and manually enter it into a database? Apparently so.

As we inch closer and closer toward becoming a paperless society, I’m surprised that some large companies still have not made the leap to basic online forms. With open source databases like MySQL and free PHP form code all over the Internet, I cannot understand why companies are still using such slow and costly measures as the postal service, which costs over 40 cents per letter here in the US and adds days to the transaction time.

Now that consumers are more demanding and fickle than ever, I at first wondered how these companies could get away with such a clunky user experience. Typically such a burden on the user causes them to go elsewhere. Then I realized the sources: a doctor’s office and the US government. I had nowhere to turn. I had to sit down with the clipboard and fill out the forms.

Handwritten Form #1: New Patient at a Doctor’s Office

When I called a doctor’s office recently to schedule an appointment as a new patient, the receptionist said they would mail me the appropriate forms to fill out ahead of time. I guess this shows they are trying to save some time by not making me fill out the forms there and back up the appointment schedule for that day. I asked the woman on the phone if I could just log in to their website and fill in the forms there. She paused as if I had asked her a question in another language, and then reiterated that the forms were in the mail.

Four days later, the envelope that they paid to mail me arrived containing several forms. Oddly, each one asked for almost the exact same basic information: name, address, date of birth, insurance information, etc. I had no way to enter this information once and then just answer the new questions on each form. And keyboard combinations like Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V don’t work on paper, so I couldn’t cut and paste.

Instead of mailing or faxing the paper back so they could enter my information into the system ahead of time, I was asked to hand deliver it on the day of my appointment. When I was leaving the doctor’s office that day, the receptionist explained to me that they’d have to bill me later. Because I wasn’t yet in their system, they couldn’t calculate how much my insurance would cover. I haven’t received that bill yet, but I’m guessing I won’t be able to quickly pay it through online banking.

Handwritten Form #2: New Voter Registration

As someone relatively new to this city, I wanted to transfer my voter registration to New York State so I could participate in the February 5 Presidential Primary. I went to the New York State Board of Elections website and scanned the page for a link to an online form that let me submit all the necessary information to kick off the process.

Initially it looked promising. I quickly found the link entitled “Complete English Form On-Line”. Perfect—or so I thought. This link actually opens up a PDF form that I can print out and mail in. Faxing is not even an option. I even have to write in the mailing address for my county board of elections on the outside of the folded form. Now the onus to go out and buy a 41-cent stamp was on me. I pay all my bills through online banking or through automatic deductions to my credit card, so I don’t even own a stamp.

Alternatively, the site said I could go to my local post office to pick up a form that came with a pre-paid envelope, so I opted for that since I had to go to the post office regardless. To get this form from the post office teller, I had to wait in line a half hour. After carefuly penning each letter in the little boxes using a blue pen as instructed, I dropped the envelope in the mail slot.

If it had been an online form, I would have received an immediate on-screen confirmation that my form had been submitted correctly. I also would’ve received a confirmation email within two minutes. And later, as soon as I was officially registered to vote in New York State, I would then expect another email to close the loop.

It’s now been almost two weeks since I dropped my prepaid postage envelope in the mail slot. Now I just have to wait and hope that my envelope was delivered to the right address in a timely manner, that it made its way from the mail room to the right office and into the right hands, and that my handwritten information gets manually entered into the database some time before next week so I can be eligible to cast a vote in the upcoming election.

I even went online tonight to see if I could find a site that could verify my form’s status. I’ve found sites like this for many states, but so far I haven’t run across one for New York. I guess I’ll call the County Election Board tomorrow to check in. Just imagine how many person hours are spent fielding phone calls from people like me who want to know if their form was received! Yep, those are my tax dollars hard at work.

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I’m hoping that these instances are the outliers and that most informational transactions between customers and businesses are fully happening online. If you have a website that relies on snail mail and blue pens, I’d be interested in hearing your case for why you do things that way. If it’s just because you haven’t gotten around to changing your process, I encourage you to make a New Year’s resolution to make 2008 the year to go paperless. Your customers and your wallet will thank you for it.

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