I thought I would add my limited experience here. There will be more to come soon.
I have used LabCorp for my lab service for four years, and they have been a good lab service. They put a computer in my office four years ago, free of charge, to order my labs through. They also provided phlebotomy supplies, tubes and a pretty good centrifuge. We just charge for specimen collection, and LabCorp bills the patient for the labwork. We have never had any kind of a contract. That system has worked well for us for years.
When I told my rep that I wanted to try the Amazing Charts interface, he found me someone higher up the chain of command that knew what I was talking about. She faxed me a contract to set up their half of the interface.
I reviewed the contract with an attorney of my acquaintance, and he said it was a terrible contract, entirely one-sided and draconian on their part. For what? The use of some software? It's the same data transfer, we're just printing it to pixels instead of paper.
The contract struck me as just another example of the ubiquitous legal CYA statements in our present litigious society: extreme and unnecessary, evidencing corporate paranoia. It's worse than the jar of peanut butter that says "CONTAINS PEANUTS" in bold print (in case you are stupid and extremely allergic). It's more like having to sign a waiver at KFC before they'll let you unwrap your spork: you are very unlikely to hurt yourself, but if you did somehow manage to put your eye out while shovelling cole slaw, there is no way they would owe you a dime.
It offended me in principle, but try as I might, I couldn't dream up a nightmare scenario where I could get into too much trouble, and I was impatient to get started so I went ahead and signed it. I know, I know. I'll keep you updated.
Another thing that struck me as odd: they want me to keep their present computer system in place "as a backup in case AC doesn't work". I complained that I had limited counter space for computers and they said I could use their monitor, keyboard, and printer, set my tower by their tower and use a switch from Radio Shack to select which tower I wanted to use.
That has been about 3-4 weeks ago. They said it would take six weeks to get it set up, so we're still on schedule!
I'll tell you more about the service as it happens.
