MDNG Net Guide (September, 2007) recently ran a story entitled, “Shhhhh! (10 Secrets the EHR Companies Don't Want You to Know).” The article highlighted the seamy underbelly of the EMR business. The “secret” practices referred to in the article are useful for physician to note. Since so many of these practices might be hard to spot--and you might even wonder if Practice Velocity engages in any of these shady practices--we thought that it might be useful to compare these “secret” practices to the open practices of Practice Velocity.Secret #1: EHR awards have been bought! Yes, many EMR companies have actually paid off companies to give them awards. Practice Velocity has never entered any of these rigged contests, because the only award that Practice Velocity has ever sought is the award the really counts, the accolades of its own customers.
Secret #2: That “non-biased” expert recommending an EHR to you may have been paid off too! Again, many EMR consultants are actually receiving sales commissions as for referrals to purchase their EMR. Practice Velocity has never participated in this deceptive practice. We believe that anyone acting as a salesperson for a product should be identified as a salesperson to the prospective buyer.
Secret #3: Even that EHR-using physician you’ve been referred to may have been paid off! People often ask us how our customers can be such raving fans of Practice Velocity products. No, we have never paid anyone to provide testimonials to the value of our products. Even the many customers that take the microphone and extol the value of Practice Velocity at the annual PV dinner (held during the UCAOA Annual Convention) have never been paid to take the microphone and tell about how PV has worked for them.
Secret #4: The respected physician leader of your local society may also be receiving compensation! Yes, leaders in national urgent care associations have and do use Practice Velocity, but Practice Velocity has never paid them to state this publicly. In fact, in order to protect their credibility as leaders in the urgent care industry, we have encouraged many of them to downplay the fact that they use PV products in their urgent care centers.
Secret #5: Determining how much a specific EHR costs is going to be difficult, and you are going to be nickel-and-dimed every step of the way! Since the very beginning, we have determined that we were tired of the way software companies had treated us as customers. One company even required us to pay up front just to get a quote on how much a modification to their system would actually cost. Instead, Practice Velocity has always made its prices simple and transparent. In addition, since putting our first customer online five years ago, our prices for our charting and coding solutions have never gone up one penny.
Secret #6: Your patient data will be a bargaining chip to prevent you from leaving an EHR company! What a scam! Practice Velocity would never want anyone to say that we had not treated them fairly on exit. That is why we clearly state, up front, in our contracts that the urgent care customer will always have a right to leave with a complete set of patient records.
Secret #7: The return on investment (ROI) argument is another way of saying “this solution is overpriced!” But what if you offered your product on a thirty-day trial basis with no money down, and the urgent care center doesn’t a pay a penny if it doesn’t see real the solution create more value than it costs? Yes, that is what PV promises, “Try us for thirty-days, if you are not absolutely convinced that Practice Velocity Templates (PiVoTs) is paying for itself, then you stop using PiVoTs and pay us nothing.” With the exception of two centers that used the system for under a week, every center that has tried the system for thirty days has decided to pay for and continue using the system.
Secret #8: EHRs don’t improve quality of care and often make you less efficient. And since you won’t figure this out until you are actually using the product, EHR vendors won’t let you try-before-you-buy, and there is no return policy! This is almost always true. But here Practice Velocity is completely different. Remember you can “try-before-you-buy” PiVoTs for 30-days. Even after the thirty days, since PiVoTs work on subscription you only pay for the visits actually charted on the system. You can stop any time with no penalty. Thirty-day trial, only pay for what you use, and stop whenever you want--now, that’s even better than a return policy.
Secret #9: A CCHIT-certified product, by definition, is often more expensive and less usable than non-certified products. That’s an absolute fact. If you make your product for a bunch of academics that don’t practice medicine but do research and evaluate bells and whistles in an EMR, you will make a product with bells and whistles that can pass a bells-and-whistles test. But if you want a product that will work in the cauldron of everyday urgent care, it probably makes more sense to try a product that was developed by urgent care professionals in urgent care centers and is already proven to work in over 180 urgent care centers. That description only fits one product—PiVoTs by Practice Velocity.
Secret #10: There are alternate ways to determine if an EHR, and the company selling you the product, will work for you. And there is no better way than the thirty-day trial that Practice Velocity offers. Try PiVoTs in your urgent care centers for up to thirty days. If you are not convinced that PiVoTs are the absolute best product that you have ever seen or could even imagine for your urgent care, simply stop using PiVoTs and you pay us nothing. As one early implementer (who still uses PiVoTs to chart over 100 patient visits each day in his urgent care center) put it, “Well, David. I guess that’s a no-brainer.”
Yes, and not only is it a "no-brainer," it is one more characteristic that separates PV from the rest of the field--NO SECRETS. Try it and see. For your free web demo of the Practice Velocity suite of urgent care solutions, call today -- (815) 544-7480.
