It will separate those who aren't able businessmen from those who are. . . . . . .

>>>>

And it will separate those who actually know what they are talking about from the blowhards that don't.

Obviously that was written by someone who has never actually done the conversion to an EMR, or by someone who has been responsible for clinical operations while that process was conducted.

When you decide to become less of an asshat, perhaps you will appreciate the difficulty that implementing these programs brings to a busy clinical environment that has goals like, say, paying its bills.

Unless you are in a habit of losing lots of charts, or you need to service a large population of patients in several locations at once, or you represent a multi-physician clinic where patients are seen by several physicians in short order and where diagnostic studies are done and recorded in house, or you can't code your work well, the benefits of EMR are questionable. For a one or two doctor practice in a single location, they are especially questionable, and that represents a substantial chunk of the private practice market.

Most practices can't afford an IT contractor and definitely can't afford an IT staff, and some of the programs require extensive ongoing support to keep them running well.
You really don't make that back in efficiencies in a small practice setting. And let's not even go to matters like upgrades, machine interfaces, new employee training costs and additional hardware costs.

"Need to become employees." What an arrogant fool.

It will separate those who aren't able businessmen from those who are. . . . . . .

>>>>

And it will separate those who actually know what they are talking about from the blowhards that don't.

Obviously that was written by someone who has never actually done the conversion to an EMR, or by someone who has been responsible for clinical operations while that process was conducted.

When you decide to become less of an asshat, perhaps you will appreciate the difficulty that implementing these programs brings to a busy clinical environment that has goals like, say, paying its bills.

Unless you are in a habit of losing lots of charts, or you need to service a large population of patients in several locations at once, or you represent a multi-physician clinic where patients are seen by several physicians in short order and where diagnostic studies are done and recorded in house, or you can't code your work well, the benefits of EMR are questionable. For a one or two doctor practice in a single location, they are especially questionable, and that represents a substantial chunk of the private practice market.

Most practices can't afford an IT contractor and definitely can't afford an IT staff, and some of the programs require extensive ongoing support to keep them running well.
You really don't make that back in efficiencies in a small practice setting. And let's not even go to matters like upgrades, machine interfaces, new employee training costs and additional hardware costs.

"Need to become employees." What an arrogant fool.

It will separate those who aren’t able businessmen from those who are.

The former need to be on a salary without someone else running the business. The later can manage both aspects.

I’m not saying that companies like NextGen don’t make a good product… but hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up and run a large system (and several thousands for basic service) in a business of shrinking margins is impractical if the learning curve is anything but a bunny slope.

I know practices that have 15 year old software that actually does what it was designed to do and it has paid for itself 1000x over, but again, its the empty promise of seamless integration with billing, records and office productivity that leaves older docs cold.

There is no robot or program that will “just make it work” … you have to do that yourself… often at much greater cost (in time and money) than you thought.

I think the future is modular, upgradeable units from different vendors… in other words… get the product or service that does WHAT YOU WANT as a doctor and don’t use OR PAY FOR what you don’t use.

Unless you are a hospital with in-house IT, all in one solutions, so far, are just cash sink-holes if you ask me.

To the real point, my feeling is that any time you can provide a doctor security/peace of mind, the quality of patient care will rise. Whether he or she is seeing five or fifty patients in a day, one less worry is one more focused thought on the person needing treatment.