Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Is v5 better than v4?

Well, I haven't been using v5 in my office. I've only used it at home as a demo. What's everyones opinion of v5 compared to v4?

Honestly, except for the eRX, it offers me nothing extra unfortunately. My most common uses are the scheduler, normal input of an H&P, and the letter writer. None of those have changed for the better. I do notice it being quite a bit slower to start up because of all the extra CCHIT stuff.

Love to hear opinions before I take the plunge. I may just wait for v6 and keep the office rolling with v4

Say it ain't so!!!!

It's better.

Travis,
I like V5 better even though I was very happy with V4 and even though I am one of the unluckies whose eprescribe is still not working. I do not understand the CCHIT stuff and think that much of its function is used by Primary Care Docs who need to keep longterm tracking and overview of patient care. For the surgical subspecialties our care is often limited in time to a specific event so all the tracking capability is pretty much wasted on us. But, I am thinking that there has been talk about "rewarding" docs who use CCHIT EMR and then I would prefer to be among the rewarded. Now ask me if I really think I am going to get a $40K check from Uncle Sam.
The switch to V5 does not require that you pay anything extra, my install has been painless, the few glitches are not terrible and some of the new features are pretty darn nice.
What would be the downside of switching to the new version?

It is pretty much the same for the same things you use.

I like eprescribing, it was the main reason to jump.

It isn't a whole lot slower on startup, and usually I keep it up and running so that is not a big deal. It interfaces and runs at about the same speed as V4.

Wait for it to go final, maybe even a version after, but it is good. I think it was worth the hassle of upgrading (no more so than most major upgrades), especially for eprescribing.

If eRx works for me, then I think I will upgrade the office once the official version comes out. It's a bit of a pain to upgrade and I really don't do much prescribing overall, but I would like to keep up with the most current version. A problem with eRX in my area is that we have a lot of mom and pop pharmacies and it is too expensive for them to go with it. They prefer me to write or fax the scripts. Of course, I write a moderate amount of narcotics and Schedule 2s have to be written anyway.

I'll wait for v5.1

Any e-scrips you send to a "mom and pop" store are automatically sent and faxed by New Crop for free. This frees up your fax line and still qualifies an office for the e prescribing medicare bonus. If nothing else it keeps my fax line clear for dozens of scrips - I have 3 small pharmacies in my little town - surprisingly 2 of the 3 have e prescribing. You would be amazed how many of them have converted to e prescribing or will if enough docs start sending them e scrips.

Once the refills are straightened out it will be even better.

I agree about the slow start-up. It sometimes irks me because there is often 20-30 seconds after clicking on the application icon when nothing happens, not even the "hourglass". I can't tell if I actually double-clicked fast enough, and upon clicking again, get the "scolding" box telling me that AC is already starting up.

The new search functions take some getting used to, but they can be helpful. The ability to generate letters with current med lists, ability to enter meds when a pt. comes in that another doc wrote is great. There are lots of little features that make the program better.

One question I continue to have - why are people turning on AC so much ? I turn it on once - granted you can log in and out - or just leave it on if security is not a problem, but I rarely have to boot AC from initial start up.

I agree it takes some time when you do that, but I do it at most once a day..