You still get faxes. Insurance companies fax you. The county clerk faxes you. Your referring physicians fax you. Telling them to switch to email isn't going to happen, so the question is whether the fax machine in the back has to keep eating paper and a phone line. It doesn't.
We're VoIP International, an operator out of Ocoee, Florida. Our vFAX service handles incoming and outgoing faxes three ways — pick the one that fits how your office actually works.
Three ways to use it
- Online portal. Drag a PDF in, type the destination fax number, send. Incoming faxes arrive in a web inbox you can search and archive. No hardware on your side at all.
- Email integration. Send a fax by emailing a PDF to a special address. Incoming faxes hit your inbox as PDF attachments. Works with Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and any IMAP mailbox.
- Adapter for your existing fax machine. If your team is used to the physical machine and you don't want to retrain anyone, our analog telephone adapter plugs the machine into our service. It works like it always did — same dial pad, same beep — but the line going out is internet, not copper.
You can run all three on the same number. Front desk uses the portal, billing uses email, the clinical team keeps the old machine for the workflows they like. Same phone number, same archive.
When the adapter option makes sense
The adapter is the option providers don't talk about because it doesn't sell their portal subscription. We sell the portal subscription, but we also sell the adapter, because we want the cutover to actually work for your team.
Pick the adapter when:
- You have older staff who genuinely don't want to learn a new workflow.
- You have a high-volume incoming workflow where a multi-page fax has to physically print and be walked to a clinical area for clinical review.
- Your existing fax machine is a multi-function copier that staff already uses for scanning and printing — yanking it would create a different problem.
- You want fax redundancy: if internet is down, the machine still operates against the adapter's last-known config until service comes back.
- You have specific regulatory or vendor requirements that the fax originates from a physical device with a known TSI string.
Adapter plus email plus portal on one number is the configuration we set up most often for medical practices that have been on the same machine for a decade.
How the adapter actually plugs in
It's a small box, the size of a TV remote, with an RJ-11 jack on one side and an RJ-45 Ethernet jack on the other. The fax machine's existing phone cable plugs into the RJ-11. The Ethernet jack connects to your office network. We pre-configure it before shipping; you plug it in and the fax machine sees it as a normal phone line. No training, no new buttons.
When portal-only makes sense
If your office has a younger staff that's already comfortable with web tools, or if you're in a hot-desking or remote setup where there is no fixed fax machine location, portal-only is the cleanest path. It's also the cheapest — no adapter to maintain, no fax machine to replace when it dies.
When email-to-fax makes sense
Email-to-fax is the best fit for staff who live in their inbox. They're already triaging incoming patient communications and vendor correspondence in email; adding fax to the same triage queue keeps things consolidated. The catch: you need TLS on your email service to keep the email leg secure for HIPAA, and you need spam filter rules to make sure inbound faxes from a vFAX system address don't get junked.
What you get on every plan
- Send and receive at the same number
- Delivery confirmations with retry logic
- PDF storage and search
- Multi-user logins with access controls
- Encryption in transit and at rest
- BAA available for HIPAA
- API access (Pro plan) for EHR or practice management integration
- Custom cover sheet templates
Pricing
- vFAX Basic — $25/mo
- vFAX Standard — $35/mo
- vFAX Pro — $49/mo
- Port your existing fax number: $15 one-time. We run old and new in parallel until cutover.
See the full breakdown on pricing. If you also need phone service, our phone service is $15 or $32 per user — bundling phones and fax on one account simplifies billing and support.
How to pick a tier
Pull a month of records from your existing service or copier print log. Match what you actually send and receive against the plan's page bucket. A solo medical practice typically lands on Basic. A 4-provider practice or a mid-size legal firm typically lands on Standard. A high-volume practice with EHR integration lands on Pro. Custom is for multi-location or volume that exceeds Pro.
Industries we set up most
- Medical and dental practices — HIPAA-ready, BAA signed. See healthcare and dental.
- Legal firms — court filings, retainers, opposing counsel. See legal phone system.
- Real estate and title — closings, disclosures, lender packages. See real estate.
- Wellness clinics and small specialty practices — see wellness clinic phone system.
- Insurance and benefits offices — claims documentation and provider correspondence.
- Accounting and bookkeeping — signed authorizations and IRS correspondence.
How the port works, step by step
- Send us a recent fax bill showing the business name, address, and the fax number you want to keep.
- Sign the LOA. We send a one-page authorization. Names and addresses have to match the bill exactly.
- We submit to your losing carrier. Typical timeline is 7 to 14 business days.
- You get a temporary fax number from us for testing while the port runs.
- On port day, the number swings. The next incoming fax shows up in your inbox, not the machine.
- You cancel the copper line from the prior provider. We won't do that for you — it's your relationship with them.
What can go wrong during a port
The two most common port problems we see: the LOA doesn't match the carrier's records (fix: get a current bill and match exactly), and the losing carrier slows the response because the customer is in mid-contract (fix: the carrier still has to release per FCC rules; we escalate). A third, less common problem: the number is associated with a bundled service that prevents partial cancellation (some cable providers do this). In that case, you may have to cancel the bundle or accept a workaround. We'll tell you before you start.
Common mistakes
- Buying the cheapest tier with a low page bucket and getting blindsided by overage charges. Pull volume data first.
- Forgetting to whitelist the vFAX outbound email address in spam filters. Outbound senders need to be allowed in your email security policy.
- Letting one user own the inbox instead of setting role-based access. If that person quits, no one can get to inbound documents.
- Canceling the old fax line before the port confirms. Don't. Faxes will go to a dead number.
- Not testing the EHR or PMS integration if you're on the Pro plan. The API connection needs to be configured and tested before cutover.
- Skipping the BAA conversation because the practice administrator forgot to ask. Sign it before going live.
- Updating staff workflow without training. A 10-minute walkthrough saves hours of confusion in week one.
What to ask a provider
- Can I send and receive on the same number?
- Do you have an analog adapter option if I want to keep my fax machine?
- Will you sign a BAA?
- What does delivery confirmation look like?
- How long does porting take, and what does it cost?
- Who answers when something goes wrong?
- What's your retention policy?
- Is there an API for EHR integration?
What we don't do
We don't offer free fax-to-email as a loss leader to upsell other products. We don't sell a fax service that doesn't include the inbound side. We don't make you re-sign annually to keep the same rate. We don't sell fax broadcasting for marketing — that's a different product with different regulatory rules.
Texting with patients and clients alongside fax
A common question we get: "if I'm moving fax to cloud, can I also start texting patients?" The answer is yes, but it's a separate workflow with separate rules. Business SMS through our system uses 10DLC registration; appointment reminders, lab result notifications, and back-and-forth conversation are all supported. For HIPAA, the same encryption and BAA framework applies — SMS is fine for patient communication when configured correctly.
We see practices adopt cloud fax first, then add SMS three to six months later once staff is comfortable with the new fax workflow. There's no operational reason they have to be sequential; some practices launch both at the same time. The question is mostly about your team's tolerance for change.
What happens after you're set up
Customers often ask what ongoing support looks like. The honest answer: most accounts stay quiet for months at a time. The system runs, faxes go in and out, the inbox fills up and gets archived. The reasons customers reach out to us:
- Adding a new user as the practice grows. We add them in the portal; you handle the staff training.
- Plan adjustment as volume changes. If you've been hitting overages two months in a row, we'll tell you to move up a tier.
- Adding a second number for a new location or a dedicated workflow.
- Troubleshooting a specific delivery failure. We log every transmission; we can tell you what happened on our side.
- Reviewing the audit log because an auditor or compliance officer asked for it.
What we don't do: surprise you with rate changes, auto-upgrade your plan, or charge for support. The support team is part of what you pay for.
What our support actually does for vFAX customers
The reason customers move to an operator like us instead of a national reseller usually isn't features — features are mostly the same. It's the support. Here's what our team handles for vFAX customers:
- Port coordination. We submit, track, and escalate. If your old carrier rejects the LOA, we tell you why and how to fix it.
- Delivery troubleshooting. If a fax fails, we look at the actual transmission log on our side and tell you what happened — busy signal, wrong number, receiver problem, network issue.
- EHR or PMS integration support. If you're on Pro and your EHR vendor needs configuration help, we'll get on a call with them.
- Volume reviews. If you've been hitting overages two months in a row, we'll suggest moving up a tier. If you're underusing your plan, we'll suggest moving down.
- BAA renewals. If your compliance team needs an updated BAA for an audit, we'll send it the same day.
- Account changes. Adding users, changing addresses, swapping primary contacts. No service tickets that languish for weeks.
The support team is based in Ocoee. We're not routing calls overseas. When you call, you get someone who can actually fix the thing without escalating to a Tier 2 you can't reach.
A typical setup walkthrough
A 3-provider dental practice signs up Monday. Tuesday we submit the port (10-day timeline). Tuesday we send credentials for the temp number and walk through the email and portal setup with the office manager on a 20-minute call. Wednesday the office manager trains the front desk and the billing person — about 10 minutes each. Thursday they start using the temp number for outbound while inbound still hits the old machine. The following Friday the port confirms; inbound now lands in the vFAX inbox automatically routed to the EHR. The next Monday they unplug the old machine and call the legacy provider to cancel the line. Total elapsed time: about two weeks, with no missed faxes and no scramble.
Where to start
Send us your existing fax number, how many users need access, and whether you want to keep the machine. We'll quote and port. Get started, look at pricing, or contact us. More on us: about.