LOL. No, my view is not at odds with my signature. (I assume that was for me). I feel that for AC to have a complete product they need the PM. As Paul said, it has always had some PM features like scheduling and email. But the elephant in the room is "Revenue Cycle Mgmt." ok, new buzz words. sorry. I think when most of us refer to PM, we mean the full capabilities of billing software in addition to the things AC has like internal email and scheduling. And I feel they will need this complete product offering in order to thrive.
There definitely are dangers. I think we all would agree that AC appears to have it technical resources spread too thinly, and that is resulting in more bugs, more features that just outright dont seem to work. Fewer corrections of old problems while new features keep showing up (that dont fully work). And adding the developmental and support effort for the full PM system could be overwhelming for them, causing them to actually go out of business (worst case scenario). I feel Jon's challenge is to successfully get this added to the system while actually improving on the other issue people are complaining about. Its a big challenge.
He may have to try to find a way to increase his resources. Or his business model may have to be modified. He's already raised his prices, and while I doubt he lost many current customers, he did hear alot of griping.(but not from me).
I have seen so many "how to pick an emr" articles that say "if it doesnt have integrated billing, don't get it". Obviously, I didn't agree with them totally back in 2005, and I dont now. But I agree with them "more" now. Its just so much to try to manage with multiple entries and programs. It wouldn't be so bad if AC could really partner with a system like ezclain or officeally where they worked together and insured that data was transferred seamlessly between the programs. But in real life, that doesnt usually happen unless the programs are from the same company. and even then sometimes not.
I would hate to see AC put out this PM module, and it turned out to be so bad that I and others opted to use a different one in spite of the extra work incurred with using a program from a different vendor. It is a fear though.
I dont' know what Jon's pricing model will be for the new module. That will play heavily into him having enough resouces to properly continue development and maintenance of the product.
Uh oh. Commuter train is about to leave.
