Lang estimates he cut paperwork by about 75%, and the entire system paid for itself in about a year. In fact, he reports that his income on cases that require paperwork increased by 15% because, with better documentation, he's getting paid more by the insurance companies for items that previously might have been too indecipherable to report.

Want to know what he says the true benefit is? According to Lang, because his reports are now so much better, the insurance company is more confident of his findings and requests reports far less often.

And now, let's look at what our readers had to say…

Palm handhelds save lives
I had bought the Palm Vx for $430 on it's initial release. I am a cardiologist and an intensive care specialist in a leading heart institute of India. Right from PalmPilot, then Palm III, I have been an ardent fan and a power user of Palm handhelds, both at the hospital and at home.

Now, the question of TCO and ROI has really disturbed me.

I have been using my Palm handheld in my medical practice with a lot of medical software loaded on it, which guides me in caring for my patients. The most useful program, which has saved me from lots of embarrassing moments (such as prescribing the wrong medicine or incorrect doses) is ePocrates (at http://www.epocrates.com). This has really saved a lot of lives. I cannot measure it in dollar terms to give you the ROI.

Dr Nishith Chandra, MD, DM
Consultant Cardiologist
Heart Command Centre and Incharge Air-Rescue Unit
Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre
New Delhi, India

Making life easier for a manufacturer's rep
I've been a manufacturer's rep for 26 years (since 1975) and have owned my own multi-office sales agency since 1983. Since purchasing my Palm OS handheld and keyboard at Christmas of 2000, I have seen increasing productivity for my customers and myself. I use it regularly in customer meetings to take notes. I often wirelessly email both my suppliers and customers right from the customer's desk, the customer's lobby, or even my car (wherever I can get the best signal). I ask each to confirm what I've written and the action items, so as to avoid wasted time and effort, doing the wrong things, or doing the wrong things first, etc.

I've had a number of people appreciate this timely communication method. While it is difficult to gauge actual productivity, I know from history that many errors, most minor but some major, are being prevented by this improved, much speedier method of communication and follow-through. Also, it "corrects" the often encountered problem of two people's sets of notes being just a little different in the recording of key information, such as competitive, pricing, timetable, production volumes, and changes for product or part numbers, and similar such information.

For me, no longer must I transpose Day-Timer notes to memos on my PowerBook or my Desktop computers. I have recently installed portable Documents To Go (at http://www.dataviz.com) on my Palm OS handheld, making it possible for me to communicate not just in memo form via email, but also with MS Office documents (Word and Excel) as well. Changes can be more readily made to critical forecasts "on-the-fly" while talking with customers.