Dave,
The question you ask is multi-faceted and the answer depends on a lot of variables (e.g., how many of the 2000 patients do you think you will continue to see; how long and complex are the charts, etc). If it helps, I can tell you that we scanned in thousands of paper charts using inexpensive labor and the final cost was about $1.25 per chart. This did NOT include breaking down the information into text boxes in AC; they were either batch scanned (into one Imported Item category) for older charts or broken into several Imported Items categories for newer ones. So it is a bit pricey, but may be worth it to pay about $5 per chart ($10000/2000) to have the information entered into the individual fields in AC. That's if your IT people can really do it well. Of course if you estimate that you will only see 500 of the patients, then you are paying $20 per chart and that may lead to a different conclusion.
As to the sign-off question: to enter the information into the fields of a chart, you must create an encounter and that must be signed-off. You could give some (or all) of your staff "provider privileges" in AC, which would enable them to sign off the chart as they put the information in. (Of course you would want to take away that ability once the transition process was complete).
