Not sure we are very Wiki savvy here at our office so for starters I am going to post my ideas or concerns here. As some folks know we had a falling out over whether or not our database was healthy or not and according to the answer to that, what if any tech support should we be able to expect to recieve. Things got very heated and not very polite at times. Now like most parties in such a situation, we felt that we were more right and that we were being wronged, and more to the point, being ignored even though we were told to send copies of our database for review and examination. And to AC and Jon's side they have their opposite opinion of what happened here and are certainly entitled to their perspective. Both sides were less than perfect here and many times I have owned up to my 50% of the communication troubles that happeded during this period of time. The same has never been really stated by anyone on the other side of this disagreement.
So, I would ask when we might have an answer, I would then wait that amount of time if not a day or so more, and then call to see if there were any answers to the problem we discovered in the math of the financial section. What I want to convey is that as nervous as we were that we were not sure whether or not we had found a flaw in the program or had a data coruption issue we tried to stay some what calm. But it seemed that when we called back, the data was still not looked at.
A similar thing happened (still trying to address the same issue here mind you) when we were told a bit later on that the problem was probably in the program as much as anything else and so a "fix" was coming. Again we waited the amount of time we were told it would probably take, we would ping or call to ask if "the fix was in" and the like. Like many repairs this took longer than either side would have liked. Again we are not very tech savvy users who are worried about the health of our data and like most people here we had grown attached and even dependent on AC. And isn't that what should happen with a good tool that fits the customer well? So being attached and dependent is really a good thing for both sides. Whether in the theater or medicine, or tech support, part of being a good support person is understanding that until a worried patient or customer has a good answer to their problem they are worried, upset and sometimes not perfect to say the least. Possibly dirty databases are a good reason to be anxious and wanting answers
I as a PM had really grown attached to the financial section of AC because we outsource our billing and so this part of AC became a regular part of my tracking that side of our practice. This feature had been there for a long time and was not some recent beta release either. So we just sort of expected it to work as it appeared it should and at some point the numbers became so obviously squewed it was clear that even without a calculator something was very wrong in the math. So while things were getting very strained, one of the updates added a disclaimer that some of you may now know of that disclaims using AC as a financial tool when one tries to log into this side of the admin features. We saw this as trying to avoid the fix that never came and we were told we could expect. To this day this discaimer is still there and we are still not sure if the coming fix will help us and our data or not. Will our data work correctly when 4.0 comes out? We are still waiting to see the answer to this and if then our data does not work correctly, then what is our recourse? What are our rights as a customer of support services?
But the real problem that occurred was well laid out by my better half. That as AC grew, tech support got very weak and many others beside us have noted that we no longer feel secure in tech support. We feel like the folks who answer the phone don't understand the program half as well as some of the more experienced users do. Furthermore, we wonder if sometimes what is occuring between customer and tech is properly reported back to Jon or other supervisors. So who was making for communication issues? We had an incident much to Jon's credit that he read the transcript of my ping with one of the girls and sent me an email appology for the confusion a few days later, while it was still fresh (1-3 days? hard to remember now). But I was asking a fairly straight question and I recieved less than a straight answer that was very concerning. I bring this up because I feel fairly confident in the fact that this probably happened during many of our attempts to resolve our other issue. The girls on the phone and their way of handling things were making things worse and adding to the tension and confusion. This is an internal problem of Jon's that he recently admitted he is working on here on this board in answer to responses to his recent article. So was this customer getting all bent out of shape over nothing? Was the problem made worse by his own staff? We know that many users no longer call tech support because it just seems like a waste of time. We may as well just talk here amoung ourselves for most problems. Unfortunately none of us are paying Vinny, Bert, Roy or Brian for support and updates; we are paying AC for these things.
In the end we had a "normal" customer service disagreement that got kind of personal and heated. Both sides feel hurt and wronged to some extent and that is understandable. But that should not affect the rights, terms and conditions of both a EULA or a service contract and this is our big problem here and question here. It is safe to say that Nancy and I strongly agree with Leslie and Roy in the fact that when one buys a software one feels that they have bought it, and that it is theirs to have and to hold to create things in and to bring back out things that they have already created in it. The analogies to Intuit and MS are very valid. No matter how much I scream colorful metaphores (Mr Spock, ST IV) at some guy in India, MS or Intuit are not going to ask me to resign my ownership of Word or Quickbooks. No less are they going to restrain me from purchasing the newest version next release date.
What we create in AC is PHI and many patients health records. To be able to hold our patients records as a hostage over our heads to keep us all quiet and from standing up to any or all corporate changes, policies or abuses is totally unacceptable. For any real purposes, what we create in AC is only really usable to most of us average everyday users in it's original AC form. It really becomes nothing more than meaningless ones and zeros to the average user once AC is taken away. It is the same reason why many of us, like us and Roy refuse to use a virtual, ASP only software for either EMR or PM purposes. Basically no program, then no real records to speak of. Dead vendor equals dead records.
The termination clause in the EULA for vague reasons of not abiding by it that includes more vague ideas of personal behavior to be judged by only one party in the contract is just insane. Can we have a clause that says that we can have free updates and support if the girls at support continue to be of little or no use? Such one sided language benefits nobody. It obviously hurts and restrains the party that the clause is intended to restain, but it also paints the other party (AC) as less than fair or considerate and I would hope that this is not how AC cares to promote itself or hav itself be viewed in the public at large. In the end it was my questioning of the marketing of AC verses the reality of AC support that eventually brought things to a head a year ago. There needs to be well laid out protections and rights for the users and owners of the program. Petty personal differences aside, in the end this is our patients PHI that we are both eithically and legally bound to protect and need to be able to produce fairly quickly when needed or requested and no one person or company should be able to put that in jepardy no matter how stained the personal relationship between vendor and end user customer.
Lastly, I personally feel that there are issues in the tech support contract as well. The marketing of the support contract kind of promises quite a lot all while not really promising much of anything at all. To a large extent, besides both sides getting upset and rude with each other was the real problem at the heart of the matter between our office and AC was where does the service agreement leave the customer and what can the customer expect. It is AC's vagueness here all while trying to appear to be something worth purchasing, all while not really being anything at all, that is the problem here. It kind of feels sleezy when one final sees it on both sides. Guardian Angle is the marketed term on the main sales end of the website, but then "we promise nothing of substance" is in the real fine print contained inside the EULA.
Perhaps the EULA needs to be separate from the service agreement. A number of times I and a few others have suggested that perhaps we all need to pay a reasonable amount more in exchange for better support. Intelligent well trained Americans cost real money and it would be unreasonable for us to expect to recieve top quality services from fellow well spoken citizens without being willing to pay for such services. But if we can not turn to the designer of our product in times of need, then who can and should we turn too might I ask? And if we are to sign and pay for a service contract should not that contract properly define both sides rights, terms and conditions? It seems to both of us that this issue is consistantly ignored in an attempt to keep half the topics for discussion off the table in the first place.
At what point is AC marketing itself as a real product for purchase verses some beta like work in progress that is a "use at one's own risk", and not ready for primetime product? If it is not the former, then why is this not extremely clear on one of the first main pages of the sales side of the website, in large never to be missed print, instead of deep within an EULA that everyone knows, most people don't bother to work their way thru? Again it "feels wrong" and not the image that AC proclaims to have for itself. Many, not just us were kind of blown away when all this really came to the surface. Many folks were not even aware that the EULA was contstantly changing as they were downloading and installing their regular updates. So just to recieve and install the updates that one has previously purchased perhaps six month earlier let's say, they must also sign off on new terms and conditions to their EULA. Is this right? Does this seem weird to anyone else besides us? Does CCHIT seem weird to anyone else or are Nancy and I just a dieing breed of enlightened, aware, questioning consumers?
I would like to add one or two more clarifiers here but I really need to leave to get my kids now. Have a great night one and all...
Paul and Nancy
