Jon,
Fair enough. I'm sure to some, I may be coming off as an overzealous harbinger of the apocalypse, lol. I'm actually not a "rock the boat" kind of guy. For example, when version 8.x came out, we adopted, were horrified and upset with the speed, then upgraded our server and disks (SSD) and moved on. In my mind's eye, it wasn't a showstopper - it was more an annoyance that could be addressed with a little time and $$$. It's a small and intimate company with finite resources doing the best they can - we get it.
This issue is a little bit different, or a *lot* different, depending on the mechanics behind the new encryption process. Any procedural change that puts distance between a user and their data is a huge deal, at least in my mind. And we make it a point to check regularly for any winds that signal change. Access to data is how wars are won and lost in the IT arena. It goes without saying that all the people who went with outfits like Practice Fusion are now lamenting that decision. They'll go where their data takes them, led around by their noses.
I was actually quite surprised that I was the first person to bring up this issue. It makes me wonder how many people are actually checking the integrity of their backups, rather than just eyeballing the date stamp and size. A recent bout with Ransonware really drove home that point with us. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if you aren't regularly checking the integrity of your backups (regardless of vendor), you are doing yourself a huge disservice. This is the *life blood* of every practice, I'd imagine. Given the current scenario - unless you have someone like Sandeep or Indy around, the only real way to check is to restore the backup file to your live Main Computer. Perhaps someone knows better, but I wouldn't recommend that practice, especially given how shaky the restore process is in the first place.
Jon - I'll take your advice, give them the benefit of the doubt, and take a wait-and-see approach. But if I sense a theme that we're not happy with, it'll be time to halt all updates and shop around for a new EHR. And I'm sure admin wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it - we're not part of the cash-cow segment: the Cloud's where it's at.
