Home Forums Discussions General Discussion AC Status update from Primed or John or anyone

I apologize if this information is posted elsewhere. Everything either seems SO secretive or confused OR we are dealing with one of AC's Achille's heels -- ineffective and infrequent communication?

Last communication from the Tower of Babel was back in January. Does anyone know what is going on with Amazing Charts, v6.5, plans for EMR/EHR integration, etc? I cannot find any updates from any staff at AC here on our user board. Am I not searching correctly or is the promise of keeping us better updated and more in the loop like v7 vaporware?

Frustrated and disappointed,


James P. Clayton, M.D.
US Virgin Islands
www.redhookfamilypractice.com

Updates are usually pretty infrequent. It seems they are more frequent now than they used to be if that makes you feel any better...

BTW, I loved the hospital on St. John, it was so funny to see donkeys grazing in the front lawn when I drove by there while on vacation. If you ever need a locum tenums.... do you know if DOs can get a license there?

James,

The practice I work for is beta testing AC 6.5.2. I know AC is still not forthcoming about future releases. I don't think the do it on purpose, I think they don't know how to handle such a large population of users. I was hoping after joining with Primed, the communication would get better, but.....

The beta testing is going very well. Most of the things that AC would be in Ver. 7 is in 6.5.2 except for the direct billing part. AC is working very closely with us and is LISTENING intensely. The last that I heard was the official release of 6.5.2 would be around April 1. We have found VERY little wrong with 6.5.2, mostly minor cosmetic things, nothing that is stopping us from performing business as usual.

I keep reminding AC about the list of 81 (or whatever that number of fixes is) and they keep saying that are working on them. One that IS fixed is the ability to compress the folders in Imported Items and have them STAY compressed.

If you have any particular things that you want to know if they have addressed, feel free to post them here and I will answer them as best I can.

Brian

Hallelujah!

Just my rambling but the merger of Primed and AC was just November(not that long ago really) and while ongoing development of the EHR/PM is prob still going on I think the push would probably be figuring how AC integrates into Primed, is it a 'separate product' or is it woven into a bigger framework. That if it is the case would then dictate that any changes made 'fit' into such framework or at least be reviewed before being implemented.

John,
Don't get your hopes up yet...

If they fix the folders, I will write a post every day saying something good about AC.* **


*(If I can find enough good things)
** (AND, if they really fix the folders, not just some half-measure)

Before any prospective AC buyers stumble upon this thread and get the impression that the AC community is an extremely unhappy community, I'd like to direct them to "Would you choose AC again?"

Brian,

Have they fixed the billing so that if you list a hospital as the place of service, the hospital information gets into the claims? Right now, only the name of the hospital gets in, the rest of the info is still your office address and NPI.

Have they put in a way of entering a referring provider for the individual claim? Not the goofy place in the demographics section, but on the claim itself, where it's relevant?

I've got other questions, but let's see how these two work out.

Thanks,
Asutosh Sharda

Asutosh,

We don't do billing from AC, but I would be willing to check these questions out for you when I am in the office sometime and let you know.

Brian

To get back to the topic of this topic, I am posting a question I sent to Chris at AC and her reply.

> Chris,
>
> Long time no hear. How about an update posted to the User Board?
>
> 1. Looks like no annual BIG conference, just regional ACUG meetings????
> 2. Release of 6.5.2. I am beta testing and love it. Claire is being VERY responsive to my bug reports, developers are being VERY slow about releasing fixes. Their rational is that they don't want us to have to re-install it too often. I have 21 PCs, and would rather get the releases as they are ready and be able to test the fixes than to wait more than 4 weeks for a release.
> 3. How are things working with PriMed?
> 4. Your general opinion of things at AC.
> 5. The work being done on the LIST OF 81 bugs/enhancements from the User Board.
>
> You came in with a BANG and then fell off the face of the earth, typical of the last 3 years of AC.......
>
> Brian

UB posts are scheduled for end of month each month, so look out for one next week. Quarterly news letters are also starting April 1.

ACUG will be regional this year and will coincide with Pri-Med events. Next year might be different, but we'll see what feedback we get. So far, the response to regional events has been positive.

Thanks for being a beta tester! We need the help and your feedback has been great. We will continue to hone in on a better process but since we want to get to market without a long beta period, less frequent updates are optimal unless we have urgent issues. There is a full three week regression for every beta upgrade so I'd like to put as many fixes as possible in each.

Things at AC are great and Pri-Med is a wonderful partner. It will take time to shift to a more reliable process and to hire the additional resources we need to meet all our objectives , so I thank you for you patience and loyalty as we move in that direction.

Chris
Sent from my iPhone

UB posts are scheduled for end of month each month, so look out for one next week. Quarterly news letters are also starting April 1.

ACUG will be regional this year and will coincide with Pri-Med events. Next year might be different, but we'll see what feedback we get. So far, the response to regional events has been positive.

Thanks for being a beta tester! We need the help and your feedback has been great. We will continue to hone in on a better process but since we want to get to market without a long beta period, less frequent updates are optimal unless we have urgent issues. There is a full three week regression for every beta upgrade so I'd like to put as many fixes as possible in each.

Things at AC are great and Pri-Med is a wonderful partner. It will take time to shift to a more reliable process and to hire the additional resources we need to meet all our objectives , so I thank you for you patience and loyalty as we move in that direction.

Chris
Sent from my iPhone

Chris,
Thank you for this week's update. Our practice is in the process of choosing a new billing company. It would be EXTREMELY helpful to know who you are working with to develop the PM arm of the electronic record.

DrAC,

They have been working with Gateway EDI. They have been having a lot of problems with synchronizing data.

If you look at the videos of version 7, you will see that they would like to be able to show you any rejections, and for you to be able to fix them inside AC to resend to Gateway. It's a great idea, but it doesn't work. Not yet, anyway.

Gateway also can't read AC export formats from version 6.3 either. They can, but both companies are too lazy to work together and exchange information. I say this because I (anyone) can open the preferred 1500 or any of the other AC claim formats using Excel or any of the free spreadsheets. All we need is a translator to place the data in a format that Gateway can read, or just have AC export in that format in the beginning. AC also does not export correctly. See my questions to BrianV above. I could go on, but I don't think you're looking to read for a half hour or so.

If you are using some other program to export your claims right now, then Gateway may be able to read those formats.

Hope this helps.

Asutosh

DrAC,

They have been working with Gateway EDI. They have been having a lot of problems with synchronizing data.

If you look at the videos of version 7, you will see that they would like to be able to show you any rejections, and for you to be able to fix them inside AC to resend to Gateway. It's a great idea, but it doesn't work. Not yet, anyway.

Gateway also can't read AC export formats from version 6.3 either. They can, but both companies are too lazy to work together and exchange information. I say this because I (anyone) can open the preferred 1500 or any of the other AC claim formats using Excel or any of the free spreadsheets. All we need is a translator to place the data in a format that Gateway can read, or just have AC export in that format in the beginning. AC also does not export correctly. See my questions to BrianV above. I could go on, but I don't think you're looking to read for a half hour or so.

If you are using some other program to export your claims right now, then Gateway may be able to read those formats.

Hope this helps.

Asutosh

You have the best posts bud!

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