Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Is AmazingCharts being sold to a bigger player?

This is purely a rumor that I heard from another physician that AC is being sold to another company who is bigger in size and would take AC to the next level where it can compete with the other bigger players in the industry. I am not sure how true this rumor is but I was told he got it from eCW users' forum, but Icouldn't find it there.

The same Doc. who looked at AC some months back but then went for eClinicalWorks due to non-availability of PM Module. I am sure there are a lot of people out there who like teh EMR side of AC but are being compelled to either buy or switch to other offerings because of their practice needs. We are one of them who are in need of the PM module desperately. We were told last year in March/April (when we bought AC) that the PM module will be available sometime in 2nd Quarter of '08 and you all know where we are.

Bryan, I am dissapointed that AC doesn't have its PM module yet also. However, as a former engineer and firmware developer, I understand the huge task it is to maintain and improve software like AC and try to add such a large amount of functionality considering the low cost of AC. Jon's low cost means that he simply has limited dollars so he can't easily hire extra software engineers. I tend to be patient and forgiving of this. And I really hope that rumor is unfounded. AC can be sold to a bigger player who will triple or quadruple the price. You'll have your PM program quickly, but you'll have to pay for it. And you'll have to pay for any future upgrades too.

Jon's actions would not suggest he is going to sell AC. At the ACUC he saw that there was a lot more work for the PM module and I believe he decided to focus on getting SQL right. This was a huge problem when Soapware went to SQL and he did not want to disappoint us. Beta testing has taken a long time, but that is the nature of software engineering.

My sense of Jon is that he feels a responsibility to us to produce a quality product. The lure of money can alwaya affect people but I sense he will not go that route. Besides, his EULA agreement might serve as a "poison pill" because it gives us more rights than many other software companies would be willing to conseed.

Hello All,

I was by no means being critical of Jon or doubting his intentions, rather I was trying to make a point that a software like AC, getting good reviews, should not lose business to competetion just because of functionality.
I really don't know what kind of profit margins the bigger players have in their rpices, but I see a big price gap between them and AC, so I beleive AC can easily beat the competition after incorporating the PM functionality and yet be cheaper than others.

Absolutely true.

I do no know the structure of AC, Inc, but I do not think it is publicly owned. Thus, for it to be bought up would require Jon to sell it.

He either needs to build the PM module or make a functional link to one already in existance. One problem is, no one is really happy with most off the shelf PM programs too, unless they are very expensive.

Yes, there is the x link, and there is the direct connect to EZ Claim, but the latter is not a very good PM program.

This remains a work in progress, albeit a very functional one. Once the PM piece is done, it will be much closer. The screens we saw in Branson suggest a nice base, but they did need some work.

Software development is an EVER moving target, I'm not sure AC continue to "grow" by maintaining a "small" team. As the product gets more robust there is a need to have 2 teams of developers: 1 team that maintains the current product and another team that adds new features.

Wayne, unfortunately the market does not stand still. Jon has had among his more ardent supporters, users who have some capability to extend the product. So if Jon's business model does not allow him the resources to build all or the functionality himself, then he needs to adapt the model of the iPhone: build your core product well, and allow other developer/users to add the functionality you need without altering the core product, and without YOU having to pay for the cost of their development.

The current users want low price but how does that advantage "the AC Business Model?"

George,
It advantages the business model in that people like the product and stay with it! Again, bigger is not always better. I currently have a PM program (VisonaryMed) which I purchased 11 years ago when it was a small company. I bought it because the price was fair and the program was simple....no unwanted bells and whistles. I could actually call the head programer on the phone and discuss some things I thought might enhance the program and, voila, there they were.
Over the years this company has continued to "grow". While it puts out "Updates" almost weekly, I cannot think of a single one in the last 2 years which improved functionality for me, a small-time user.
The last two times I have called support I was put on hold (not a toll free call!) for over 40 minutes and, on neither occasion were they able to help me. I have had concerns my backups might not be legit but, they now tell me my data base size exceeds their program's automatic back up utility. HUH??
I replaced an office desktop and spent most of the night Thursday and a good part of the day yesterday reloading programs. Everything went on easily without a hitch, including AC, except Visonary. When I called support (and held for 40 minutes) in an effort to re-license this workstation (which by the way I am charged a fee per workstation, not per user) I was told the CD I used to load the program is too old and, even after they came in remotely, they could not license the program. So, I asked them to send me an updated CD. Get this.....they want me to pay for a replacement CD!!! Now, I have already purchased the program and I pay yearly licensing fees and now I have to buy another program CD in order to license a station I have already paid for???? I don't think so. So, my point is this. "Growing" a company does not always insure functionality. I am, like a lot of others, waiting patiently for Jon to develop a stable, useful and fair PM module. As soon as he does, Visionary is history. I trust Jon. I honor his motives. And I hope he always has his head and his heart in the right place. Being a leader is not always the smartest place to be.

Leslie

Leslie, a agree with you that "growing" a company does not always insure functionality. That is why I suggested the iPhone Model. Let OTHER people take the risk of developing add-ons for AC. That way the CORE business model remains in place. If someone develops a widget that is useful, they sell it to the large AC community.

That's all I am suggesting.

Yes, I very much agree with all of the above. First, though, let me state for the record that Amazing Charts is NOT in any talks about being purchased or acquired in any capacity whatsoever. (In fact, I've not even heard that rumor - where did it come from?)

That said, I too share your frustration with us not having completed the features that are sorely needed. I truly apologize for this delay. In a moment, I will address our plan to remedy this.

As to why the delay, Wayne is mostly correct. We have thus far refused to be beholden to investors and I have required Amazing Charts not to take on any debt (so I can sleep at night). So while our low cost means there isn't a ton of cash available for R&D, that isn't currently the reason for our delay as we have enough on hand to be moving much faster than we are. (A few years ago this was the issue.)

The real problem, as I see it, is actually two-fold. First, I remain adamant that the program be simple to install and intuitive for a physician and their staff to use - without needing an IT person, training, or even a dedicated server (as nearly all our competitors require). This takes a lot of extra time sorting out the installation issues that Windows tends to cause (which have multiplied dramatically with Vista and our move to SQL Server as our backend database). The current version - oh so close to being done - has this new backend database and is thus quite stable and capable of scaling up as a practice grows. This "simple and intuitive" requirement, however, has made the move to SQL Server a 9 month project instead of the 3 months for which I had planned.

The other issue is that I have been in control of each iteration of the Amazing Charts code - rather than using the classic approach to development of project managers, developers, QA, source control, etc. I have required, since I first started writing the code in 2001, that I must understand each line of programming. This came about since I was the one who had to debug issues as and when they arose.

This means, though, that I take all this code being written by our 2.5 programmers, and then I have to put it into our codebase, compile it, test it, rework it, retest it, etc. As you can imagine, this has significantly slowed the development cycle as the program has grown, especially when it comes to complex additions that "touch" a number of other areas of Amazing Charts (such as Practice Management, which is basically an entirely new program that must be deeply integrated into Amazing Charts). In other words, I am the bottleneck.

Okay, so what's the solution?

First, we need to release V4 (hopefully the first week of Feb). Next, our e-prescribing must be improved and better integrated into Amazing Charts - as most of us need to use it if we want the lousy Medicare carrot being offered this year (and stick in a few years to come). Happily, most of this programming is complete and needs to just be added and tested.

At the same time, CCHIT has unfortunately become more than just a silly annoyance since Medicare will soon be tying reimbursement rates to whether the note was documented with a CCHIT certified EHR. So as much as CCHIT is mostly BSHIT, it seems we have to become CCHIT certified. But CCHIT requires we find a way to add literally hundreds of bells, whistles, and
annoyances without screwing up our beautifully simple software. My goal is to have both e-RX and CCHIT complete in Q1 of this year.

Now for how we are changing our process. Instead of simply doing these in series, the plan is to have different development teams also working on the health maintenance/registry functionality and practice management at the same time, so that much of the coding/design/testing/recoding, etc., can occur simultaneously.

Of course this means a new approach to the development cycle. It is not, I have learned the hard way, as simple as adding more programmers - we need to bring in project managers, a better testing and quality assurance processes, source control, and teams of developers. These are big changes and have big costs, both of which Amazing Charts has been planning and saving for over the last 6 months as we realized that our slow development cycle is unacceptable.

So, in summary - I hear you! We are not being acquired, but we are outgrowing our start-up company mindset and are thus implementing a more robust and experienced development process that we truly hope will allow us to overcome this barrier.

More on this topic as soon as V4 is officially released. Thanks for your patience!

Jon

Thank you, Jon.

With all of its ups and downs, (mostly ups) AC remains the best EMR for the money out there. Without AC, my office staff would still be deciphering my notes, pharmacies would still be calling wanting to know if I wrote Zyban of Zyrtec and our copier/fax machine would be replaced yearly having to copy and fax all of the illegible notes.

We have all been critical of AC's development at times and, fortunately, we have a great forum to discuss it. I can guarantee you that Jon listens to what we say and tries to incorporate our requests into the program. I often have to remind myself that the direction I want AC to go is not necessarily Jon's.

While we certainly have our right to say what we want on these boards, I think it is irresponsibile to start a thread based on rumors. Jon has given the solo practitioner and small practice an EMR they can afford and this is Jon's livelihood. Rumors can spread easily usually much faster than truth. I don't think AC deserves that, and I know Jon doesn't.

As a solo practitioner, who has used AC for years and come to depend on it, I too would like to thank Jon for his efforts.

I'm just curious, but how much does it cost a small EMR company to obtain CCHIT certification?

Thank you Jon.

Leslie

I too, must thank Jon both for creating AC as well as his careful guidance with it's development.

Yes, I look forward to an integrated PM system but realize that even without it, we have one of the best EMRs out there and it is continually getting better. I would rather see them take more time to get it right than jump out there and have to back peddle due to errors. The beta's are better than some companies final versions.

It's nice to see Jon on the boards now and then, given all the things he has to juggle. I am glad he chimed in on such an important topic.

Hi Gregory:

The cost of CCHIT certification used to cost a total of $28000.00 for the 1st year of certification, with a cost of $4000 to keep the certification active on years 2 and 3; in many situations, s.a. to work in a Stark-relaxation-kickback environment, the vendor had to recertify yearly at $28000.00 a year.

In 2008, the application cost for CCHIT increased and is now $29,000 application plus $6,000 for maintenance for a grand total of $35,000 for the first year, then $6000 a year for the next 2 years if you don't want AC to participate in the Stark relaxation cr*p. (http://cchit.org/files/certification/08/Forms/CCHITCertified08Handbook.pdf)

The real question is what will AC cost after CCHIT and after the Jet4 back-end gets replaced by an SQL back-end. My guess is that AC may cost up to 5 times more than it does now... watch out what you ask for!

The other question is if there is still going to be an AC version that does not offer these upgrades and is sold still for close to the under-$1000 for a basic license which is what made it famous.

BTW, I am now going to be a columnist at the MD Net Guide magazine which now is sent to over 250000 physician offices. My job will be to discuss these topics in my own regular column, one different topic per issue. I will offer the counter-balance/opposing view to the unfunded mandates being pushed through Congress. In February- the discussion will focus on e-prescribing (a counter to an article that was recently published in the Wall Street Journal). In March? I may discuss the recent HIMSS paper that came out here- http://www.himss.org/advocacy/d/FAQsHealthIT20081217.pdf . In April? It may be my favorite punching bag topic- CCHIT, and discuss why it should be discontinued. It'll be based on my response to an article that appeared here- http://histalk2.com/2008/08/27/readers-write-82708/

The "silver lining" about this recession is that it may end up reversing the bastardization of HIT, since nobody will able to afford this stuff! At least I hope to be there to kind of push things along in the right direction. The other thing that will help me is that in the past 2 years, since I practice "inside the Beltway" close to Congress, I had one lobbyist in Congress helping me out; now I have 2, one Republican, one Democrat. That will come in handy... ;^)

In all of this, AC sales should do well.

Cheers,
Al

First of all...I appologize to those who are somehow offended because of my starting this thread based on a rumor I was told by an eClinicalWorks user.

Bert!!!!!
If rumors about AC cannot be best verified (or discussed) here then where should these be talked about? I Beleive in directly asking the person relating to the rumor or what have you to clear the misunderstanding, rather than keeping it a rumor.

I thank you JON for coming up on this thread and clarify and now there is no more of that rumor....

Anyway, I once again appologize, and hope we get the new AC with PM in the very near future..

Alborg, the sql server 2005 express does not cost anything, it is free for up to 4 gb of data. There is no governor to restrict the number of users. Everyone is well aware that the jet engine has it's limitations.

gkfahnbulleh, you're right. Didn't think about the SQL Server Express 2005.
Al

Exactly! I certainly wouldn't call posting on a message board directly asking the person....I would suggest that you email or call that person. The email address and phone numbers are clearly posted on the web site. http://www.amazingcharts.com/help/index.html
We can agree to disagree that talking about "rumors" on the message boards is just not helpful.
I certainly don't want to start a flame war, but I am on here everyday. You can get my attention with just one "!"

I am speaking an AC Forum moderator.

Bert, I completely agree w/ you.
It's totally inappropriate to start rumors about Jon's company.

It's also not necessary to scream at Bert w/ 5 exclamation points, BryanMedical.

Perhaps we call an end to this thread.

Thank you.

I guess the teh matter is long closed after Jon had responded to the original query..

For some reasons few people here seem to take it personally and claim AC as their own company more than Jon would...and sometime take this board as a place for marketing their own products..

I usually don't post because I have way too much to take care of my business. I can't sit here and write manuals unless I have some kind of interest in it..

Anyway...I have committed the crime, if it is...bye

I suppose I should let this thread die here and not respond as Adam suggested. But, I simply cannot not respond to your comments.

Yes, I take it personally when a user blatantly starts a thread based on rumors. It is one thing to make a statement that could be construed as a rumor but to come right out and claim it is a rumor is another. It is also one thing to throw it in in the middle of a thread and not the subject of the thread. I don't think any physician or provider on here would want someone spreading rumors about him or her about their practice.

I have never heard anyone on here claim AC as their own. It is clearly Jon's program. And, everyone on here is free to be supportive or critical, and they are. Just go back and read the "EULA Wars," and you will see that.

I do not see where any of this has to do with some people's marketing their own products are the board. If this does happen, it is not often, and those who do are encouraged to stop.

Thanks. Again, can we agree to disagree?

First off as one of the biggest hotheads on this board who is really getting the first hand education of his life in the concept of "responding instead of reacting" I say let's all just chill out folks. We really are all one big happy AC family here. Secondly, as I have pointed out many times before as a USA Hockey Official I will give you all 2, 10, game if you can't return to sportsman like conduct

But seriously folks I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to Jon for dropping by and clueing us all in on what the deal is both on the supposed rumor as well as another "State of State" update on what is going on inside the company in terms of development and growth. Nice to see our (Jon's) baby has really started to spread it's wings.

Anyway, life is still all too crazy here, so let me run....

Paul

Thanks all! Nice comments, and frankly I'm okay with rumors, if they can be squashed with the facts. It is clear that the sales techniques of the big boy EHR systems are to use misinformation as a way to compete with our low cost solution. (Without the rumors and false statements by our competitors, who in their right mind would pay so much money for a piece of software?)

Since the most common response by our competitor when asked why they are so expensive compared to Amazing Charts is, "You get what you pay for," and, "They aren't CCHIT certified," - it is clear that these must be addressed.

"You get what you pay for," is already addressed by the AAFP user ratings, KLAS ratings, and other sources where actual users rate the software. Amazing Charts consistently scores significantly better than our competitors despite our significantly lower cost. According to these surveys, Amazing Charts is much more usable than most other software programs according to dozens of users who have purchased us compared with the reports from users of our competitor's software. (AAFP members can review these scores at http://www.centerforhit.org/x290.xml. )

I tried to post the actual AAFP numbers online, but got an email from the AAFP saying I could not - although their legal agreement says nothing about not being able to. But rather than piss off the group that represents many of our clients, I took the numbers down. (Of course, feel free to post your thoughts after you take a look.) It is really astounding that we score so much higher than all these well-known competitors. In fact, my reading of these ratings implies that the more money a product costs, the worse a product scores. Go figure.

In terms of the second issue, CCHIT certification - well, it is time. We are now actively determining what bells, whistles, and hoops we need to jump through to get certified. (Not to mention the 36K up-front cost!) We have decided that we must dive head-first into this nightmare, and complete certification before we do any other major development. This means PM is delayed while we make this push. I know this will be met with some frustration (including my own), but it is clear that without CCHIT certification, users won't be able to apply for many of the funds that may be made available with the government bailout and users will not receive higher reimbursements from insurers.

This is obviously a big decision, and is being made as we implement the plan outlined in my last post. Part of the plan is that we are now forming an Amazing Charts Advisory Committee which will be made up of about ten users who have consistently provided excellent guidance and help for our users and community. If you are one of these people, and are willing to help us make Amazing Charts what our users want/need it to be, please email me directly.
Thanks!
Jon