Technology has transformed how medical practices handle faxing. This guide compares two electronic fax (eFax) solutions designed to replace traditional fax machines: eCW Cloud Fax from eClinicalWorks and NEXpbx eCW Fax Connect from NexgenTec—on price, on how inbound faxes reach your charts, and on how your staff send.
Pricing at a Glance
| Feature | eCW Cloud Fax | NEXpbx Fax Connect Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly Base Price | $50/month per line | $89.99/month (Fax 12000) |
| Included Volume | 1,000 pages | 12,000 pages, up to 60,000 |
| Cost Per Page | $0.04 beyond the first 1,000 | $0.0075 down to $0.0065, every page |
| Overage Charges | $0.04 per page | None — a line pauses at its allowance instead of billing an overage |
Included with every NEXpbx plan
Every plan comes with access to the NEXpbx Fax Portal, so your staff have two ways to send: from the browser on desktop or mobile, or by adding a fax printer to Windows or macOS and printing straight from eClinicalWorks—or any other application. Per-person accounts, generated cover pages, transmission receipts, and 13 months of searchable history come with it. Details on sending below, or see the full portal capabilities.
Understanding the Math
NEXpbx plans are billed on pages—not minutes—so what you see on the plan is what you send. eCW Cloud Fax includes 1,000 pages per line, then bills $0.04 for every page after that.
That per-page charge is where the difference builds. At $0.04 per page, eCW Cloud Fax reaches the price of our entry Fax Connect plan (Fax 12000 at $89.99) at roughly 2,000 pages per month. Past that point, NEXpbx costs less every month—and the gap widens with every page you send.
Cost Comparison by Volume
| Monthly Pages | eCW Cloud Fax | NEXpbx Fax Connect | You Save |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6,000 | $250 | $89.99 | $160/mo |
| 12,000 | $490 | $89.99 | $400/mo |
| 20,000 | $810 | $129.99 | $680/mo |
| 30,000 | $1,210 | $194.99 | $1,015/mo |
eCW Cloud Fax figures are $50 base plus $0.04 for each page beyond the first 1,000. NEXpbx figures use the smallest plan that covers the volume and includes Fax Connect—Fax 12000, Fax 12000, Fax 20000, and Fax 30000 respectively.
Per page, that works out to roughly $0.04 with eCW Cloud Fax at any volume, against $0.0075 on Fax 12000 and $0.0065 from Fax 20000 up.
A practice sending 12,000 pages a month saves $400—and a high-volume practice at 30,000 pages saves over $1,000.
Real-World Example
One of our medical practice clients using NEXpbx eCW Fax Connect:
Monthly Usage
- February: 7,017 pages on Fax 12000 = $89.99
- March: 7,116 pages on Fax 12000 = $89.99
What They Would Pay with eCW Cloud Fax
- February: $50 + (6,017 × $0.04) = $290.68
- March: $50 + (6,116 × $0.04) = $294.64
Monthly Savings: Over $200
Which Solution is Right for You?
Choose eCW Cloud Fax if:
- You send fewer than 2,000 pages/month
- You prefer eClinicalWorks' native solution
- Predictable low volume
Choose NEXpbx Fax Connect if:
- You send more than 2,000 pages/month
- You want inbound faxes delivered into eCW automatically
- You want predictable monthly costs
- You need high-volume capacity (up to 60,000 pages)
- You want to eliminate overage charges
NEXpbx Fax Plans
Every plan is priced on pages per month, with no per-page overage. Practices that don't need automatic delivery into eCW can start at $9.99.
Fax Connect brings inbound faxes down to your practice automatically and archives every one in the portal as it goes. Where you run an eCW fax server it hands them straight into eCW with nothing to file by hand; without one, your team imports the delivered faxes. Included at no extra cost from Fax 12000 up.
| Plan | Pages/Month | Monthly Price | Cost Per Page | Fax Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fax 300 | 300 | $9.99 | $0.0333 | — |
| Fax 1000 | 1,000 | $16.99 | $0.0170 | — |
| Fax 3000 | 3,000 | $27.99 | $0.0093 | — |
| Fax 6000 | 6,000 | $49.99 | $0.0083 | — |
| Fax 12000 | 12,000 | $89.99 | $0.0075 | Included |
| Fax 20000 | 20,000 | $129.99 | $0.0065 | Included |
| Fax 30000 | 30,000 | $194.99 | $0.0065 | Included |
| Fax 40000 | 40,000 | $259.99 | $0.0065 | Included |
| Fax 50000 | 50,000 | $324.99 | $0.0065 | Included |
| Fax 60000 | 60,000 | $389.99 | $0.0065 | Included |
Integration with eClinicalWorks
Both solutions integrate with eClinicalWorks, but they solve different halves of the problem. eCW Fax Connect is a complete inbound fax pipeline: faxes arrive over the internet, land in your practice's NEXpbx portal, and—where you run an eCW fax server—are handed straight to eCW. Nobody downloads a PDF, renames it, or drags it into the chart. It's included at no extra cost from Fax 12000 up—not a separate line item or an add-on subscription.
Hands-off delivery into eCW
With an eCW fax server in place, inbound faxes arrive in eCW ready to work and no one moves a file to get them there. Each one is archived in the portal at the same time and tagged as an automatic delivery, so your audit trail always distinguishes it from a fax someone filed by hand. No fax server? Fax Connect still brings every fax down to your practice for your team to import.
Your fax line stops fighting itself
Because inbound arrives over the internet, your existing modem and phone line carry outbound traffic only. No busy signals for the practices trying to reach you, no failed inbound faxes during your busiest hours, and no Windows Server upgrade to add a second modem.
Triage before you open anything
Every inbound fax gets an AI-generated summary—sender, subject, and the gist of page one—so a stack of morning referrals can be sorted at a glance. This works alongside eClinicalWorks' Image AI Assistant, which categorizes faxes and matches documents to patient records.
The record you'll be asked for
Thirteen months of searchable history for every fax in and out, plus a downloadable transmission receipt for any delivered fax—the audit artifact practices actually get asked to produce.
Sending Faxes
Inbound delivery is only half of a practice's fax traffic. Every NEXpbx plan includes the NEXpbx Fax Portal, which gives your staff two ways to send—without anyone walking a document to a fax machine.
From the browser
Staff sign in to the portal on a desktop or phone, pick the line, enter the number, attach the PDF, and send. Multiple files merge into one fax. Cover pages—recipient, sender, subject, message, urgent flag, and a standard confidentiality notice—are generated rather than retyped.
New Print to fax straight from eClinicalWorks
Add the fax as a printer on Windows 10, Windows 11, or macOS and send from whatever program the document is already open in—including eClinicalWorks itself. Print a chart note, a referral, or a records release from eCW the same way you'd print it to paper, and it becomes a fax instead.
There's no client software to install and no special driver; it uses the operating system's built-in printing standard. The print job arrives as a draft in that person's Drafts folder in the portal, where they add the cover page and confirm the number before it goes out—so picking the wrong printer never turns into a misdirected fax.
What the portal catches before the recipient does
- Appearance pre-check — the portal inspects your document for color and photographic content that a fax's black-and-white rendering will degrade, and warns you. Advisory only; it never blocks a send.
- Duplicate-send guard — the same document to the same number moments later prompts for confirmation instead of arriving twice.
- One-click resend — a failure resends with the original document attached, and the failed attempt and its successful retry collapse into one history entry.
- Transmission receipts — download proof of delivery for any sent fax.
- Shared address book — frequent recipients are shared across every line a user can see.
Because accounts are per-person with per-line permissions, every outbound fax is attributable to the staff member who sent it—and stays searchable for 13 months.
Want to see your actual savings?
Get a custom quote based on your practice's fax volume.