Vinny,
One I understand Jon's wanting to protect himself in weird events to some extent. Hey that's my job as the paranoid practice manager watching out for my wife, right? And I never really thought it was about money, some other things perhaps, but not this. And as many of us have said before, if anybody does deserve a good honest buck or two in the crumby business of medicine, Jon and AC certainly do. This is a great product at a wonderful price. I do not begrudge him his $500 per year. As you know I have even suggested giving AC a reasonable amount more in exchange for a better defined, greater coverage service plan. Good help costs money and again just like us, Jon's gotta pay the rent and have the means to retain good folks
But all that being said, I think I can speak for at least Roy if not a few others that this one clause has us so concerned, is that it really is about control and having the ability to throw people out just because they speak up or are fairly annoying (Myself included for sure). Those of us who are speaking out just want to know that if Jon and AC exercise so extreme means of saying NO that we still get to have and hold the copies and licenses that we have already paid for; flying without a net as it maybe.
Better yet, and again I think I speak for the group here (feel free to say otherwise or support me here gang), is that just because a user or a practice full of users is annoying or otherwise unwelcome, that is poor grounds for termination and the loss of access to our data and charts. We want something that affirms our rights to stay on board, pay our annual fees, have a right to an expectation of a certain quality of tech support, and that we just can't be thrown away or under a bus, simply because we are not welcome because of the annoyances and troubles of human relations.
This is what dealing with the great general public is like. I gather you remember the flaming post the refered to me in terms like I was a bi-polar patient, that was non-compliant with my treatment, demanding controlled substances and all the other hog-wash. Now that post was pretty embarressing and got removed fairly soon, but it is burned in mine and other memories for all time. It was our own AC version of Al and the EMRupdate folks. But just because Al likes to push people's buttons when he knows he is being blown off and mistreated didn't make Al the bad guy and in the end he was "terminated" just like Village Medical pretty much was.
In light of these past transgressions, we users want something that affirms our rights to the program we purchased, regardless of how tense things may get sometimes. MS, Intuit, TrendMicro, Gateway and Dell, don't terminate me just because I have a few nasty exchanges with them over support issues and neither should any other software vendor, especially one as important and an EMR charting and/or billing program. We as the providers and the managers of those providers have a legal and ethical obligation to always be able to protect and provide our patients' medical records, anyone else's interests be dammed. Sorry but that is the honest truth and I know you understand that concept. I bought a copy of Excel, QuickBooks or whatever, and created important data that only really works for the average user without super expense and hastle in those programs. We need to have our rights to continued use and access affirmed, not taken away or held over our heads like the Server based programs do.
Anyway, it is very late and we are almost ready to hit the road for our vaction and we still have a thousand things to do. Have a great night...
Paul
