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I would appreciate any advise. I'm taking over a solo practice that has Eclinical Works EMR and existing patient are on that system. Is realy expensive - $500 a month besides the licence that is $10,000. I need to transfer from AC to ECW, but I was told by ECW that is very expensive $1000 a day. I contact AC and they advise to export my charts on Excel or CVS and import in Eclinical. Does anybody has similar experience and can your give me advise for some low cost solutions?

If I were you I would consider going in the other direction.

eClinicalWorks -> AC.

For one thing the 500 monthly is probably because they have the Hosted Plan. You may be able to reduce that if you are willing to take on the responsibility of managing your own IT infrastructure.

A number of questions come to mind:

1) How many patients/encounters are on ECW, could you simply start anew.

2) Can you export from ECW to a format recognized by AC (probably not) or could you print old encounters to PDF and import to AC. (you can but this is time consuming.

3) Is there a less expensive option (as above). They will make 6K on the current set up and would like to continue. They may be willing to accept less if they keep you as a customer. Negotiate (then print to PDF and change to AC )

4) Were you previously using AC? If you have patients on that system the reverse of what I just typed may be true and continue on ECW.

Let us know how this turns out.

Thank you guys for your suggestion.

Hey, just in case you check back, really consider Georges suggestion to go the other way. Worse case, print those charts and have someone scan them into AC. Get an IT consultant to set up your network. I know a doc who does this, his IT guy is rarely needs to come buy now that its set up. At any rate, if you like AC, then its certainly is better than picking up that $500/month annuity stream + $10K licensing fee.

Thank you guys. I am realy having hard time making desicion here. I use to have Eclinical I a was outraged when I wanted to move to diferent practice 2 years ago and I found that I have to pay again for licence and they do not have good support anyway. This is how I found about AC and I was heappy to abonden ECW. Now I have to take over solo practice, but the physician that is leaving has ECW and all the patient charts and labs. Initially I was exicited since I realy want paperless office and he already has E.prescribing, interface with Quest and Hunter lab, trained staff knowing the ECW. Also I was impressed how many other think you can do, like connection with iPhone to get access to charts and e.prescibing, portal for patient to make appointments over the Internet, patient can check their labs, history imput, connection with specialist, etc. The cost is EMR $ 250, EMR/PM $400, if with hosting $500 /required if you subscribe/ or pay upfront annual for support and maintenace sevice. I like AC, but I am affraid that to much work is invoved to move ECW charts to AC and if is ECW give me more for the money/which do not have to invest and consern about overhead/ I also consider initially to keep both until I decide.
One reson I am not excited about ECW is their service. I talk with a guy that is technical support from ECW to find out how I can transfer records from AC to ECW. He basically said that is very complicated, they charge $750/h - 1000/day and may take them days and weeks to do it and advise me to help myself if I can not afford. I am to jocking. Then I get in touch with AC and they say, it easy download the charts on Ecxel and try to import them on ECW. My problem is that I am not that comuter savy, but I exported the demografics for one minute. I wish I know IT guy to help me that is familiar with EMR, since most of them when I ask shrug their shoulders. So here I am confised and need suggesions from whomever has similar experience. Let me know. Thank for sharing my pain.

How familiar are you with AC? It sounds like you know ECW fairly well. The key in both may hinge on having a competent IT person who may help you transition either way.

Even if you keep ECW, is it worth paying them $100 for hosting? There are a lot of PM programs out there, is it worth $150 for the PM portion (perhaps, depends on how well it works.) The staff IS trained in using ECW. Perhaps using just the EMR and bringing the other portions in house may help. You would need technical support, probably from your own IT person.

In the long run, AC is more cost effective. I have seen demo's of ECW and it seemed OK but I am more comfortable with AC. In the short run, ECW is operational and you need to keep supporting it until you find a solution to transfer information out. Again, finding a good IT person will be the key.

It is easy for us to say change, we BELIEVE in AC. ECW is OK, and you may be stuck unless you can find a cost effective way to transition. Either copying or scanning the charts may be an alternative, but until then you need to find an IT person even if you keep ECW for the above reasons.

Pretty much a no brainer to me. Unless eClinical Works can triage patients and give shots, then $500 a month is outrageous. I wouldn't waste any more of your time on here. Pay a high school kid $500 to print and scan all the patients' charts into AC, then the only $500 you will ever have to pay again is for support.

Then, you can just use iPhone for phone calls and video games

...per year

I am confused. What is per year?

bisaya is referring to the only $500 dollar support being a yearly fee. It doesn't sound like much to keep AC growing and stable.

Ahh... got it.