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March 17, 2009 by Atul.
It is amazing how so many physicians are being misled by the lure of “free” EMR’s.
There are at least 2 companies in the US that are blatantly declaring how they can introduce an EMR without costing the physician or the practice anything.
Of course, it is not free!! In both these cases, the companies have deals with the vendors and will make some commission but also charge the practice for other hidden fees for , say, training and documentation.
More serious, though, is the long term effect of this “free” offer. Since some of the products are not certified by CCHIT (or equivalent), these physicians will not see a dime of the stimulus incentive funds released by President Obama’s administration.
And then, the nasty surprises will come when the physicians want to change their hospital affiliation or introduce some additional capabilities in their EMR’s or have some new reporting function talk to it.
Then, they will realize that free is in fact quite expensive. By then, the damage, in terms of reputation hit, downtime and practice continuity - is already done.
We don’t mind that the physicians - especially in ambulatory, independent group practice setting - are frugal or that they are not experts in EMR architecture - After all, we expect the specialists to be exactly that and stay current by keeping updated in the field of medicine, not IT. But we are concerned about how some in the vendor community may be exploiting this to deliver a marginalized, sub-standard system.
We at PreviMed pride ourselves at offering vendor-neutral, future-proof EMR strategies for the forward thinking physicians - And just as we don’t take any kickbacks from vendors, we also don’t offer mis-matched trouble for “free” !
Contact us, if you will like to know more.
Posted in EMR, Reporting, PreviMed-General, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »