Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Guardian Angel Support Price Increase

We were just informed this morning that because our credit card needed to be updated - we were now going to be charged over twice what we have been paying for our guardian angel support. WHAT?
I understand that prices go up but over double what we have been paying - without notice- and because our credit card got stolen and had to be updated????
If there is going to be an increase - send out a notice (maybe I missed it) - then do it across the board. This seemed like a ridiculous answer as to why we were now going to be charged what seems to me an egregious amount of money for a single-physician office..
In addition - I do not understand why we are paying for support per license - we have one database - we don't have multiple issues because of more licenses.
I also would like to know for this increase if my wait times and response time are going to be shorter. When asked if we could expect improvements we were told that she was not aware of past, present, or future technical response times and could not speak on there being any improvements or not. For this amount of money we should be able to CALL someone and get an actual person to answer the phone - not a machine.
Come on guys!! Does this sound reasonable to you?

GA Support was raised to $995/provider/year around 2 years ago. At the time, they grandfather'd the then-current prices to anyone who had had their account auto-renew by credit card until they had to change credit cards. This has even been discussed on this board...relatively recently (like in the last 8 months or so I believe.)

I hear your pain and sense of shock of losing your privileged status. It is a good thing to vent.

If EHRs were in a stable situation, you would have an excellent point. Who doubles their prices for the same service?

Most of us want AC to succeed, because we don't want to have to choose and transition to another EHR. Research, purchase price, training, support, hardware changes, decreased production, and the hassle of it can ruin your year.

Between the government mandating new features and the heating up of competition as the EHR industry sorts out like the car industry did 100 years ago, I'm sure you can imagine that AC's expenses are going up. You probably know that AC was bought out by Pri-Med recently, which doesn't happen to private companies that are flush with success.

With all of these financial stresses, it boggles my mind that someone new like me should have to pay more than twice for support than the older users. I would call that unfair capitalism, and that it is excessively kind to subsidize the older users by charging the new practices more than it would be if we all shared equally. I think everyone should carry the same freight, IMHO.

Welcome to the full load club. The villain here is whoever messed with your card.

I'm currently looking to change from Allscripts MyWay and I am thrilled with the AC costs. For anyone who looks at other systems, that price is still very low! Be happy!!

Totally correct. To go further, do a search about credit cards and price increase on the board over the last 2 years. There was been a lively discussion. You probably advance paid for 2 years. I know I did to avoid the oncoming price increase and just had to drop a several grand on update. Yes it hurt, but they are busy and it costs money to keep the company afloat. Unfortunately, you did miss the notice and ensuing discussion. They did NOT sneak it in!

As Patricia said above, compare the prices with anyone else and it's still fair. $995/year is less than $85 per month. (I think e-clinical works is about 6 times that per month.) That's for a VITAL UTILITY. Much of the big price increase was due to the prescription module being included (which was almost government mandated.)

It's not that bad. You get product updates, support, ePrescribing, meds and allergies databases, billing codes, etc.

Not only that, AC does not make you buy the new Version like many others do. For example, with many other vendors (most other, all?), if you have say Version 5, and they release Version 6 (not just bug fixes for V5, but major changes and they call it no V6) you have to buy it again! A new license fee! AC just asks that you pay for the maintenance agreement.

Robbye,

One of the quickest ways to get help immediately if you do not mind typing instead of talking is to click on the support tab, the help me now tab, then start session. I have found this to be extremely helpful and have rarely been unable to get the help needed (during working hours )from the guardian angels. This service, in addition to the others mentioned above are well worth the $995 per year cost, IMHO. With that being said, I have not paid any less for this service.

In addition to support, you get access to one of the coolest user boards around

I would have to disagree with Wendell and agree with Robbye. For a policy as important as the credit card lock-in, one shouldn't have to come on the board or do a search. In fact, most users don't come on the board. Policy like that should be emailed, mailed and posted. Robbye, this may be a dumb way to put it, but I would look at it like the price didn't double, it was 1/2 of what it should have been. The prices have been too low for a long time. Thank you, Jon.

Apparently everyone missed the memo. Prices will no longer remain the same if your credit card is valid and current. Everyone will pay the same price. So, Robbye, you would have had to pay double anyway once 6/14 rolled around. I actually think that is a good thing. I think Jon was nice to do it, but it did complicate things. (I should make it clear that it is a good thing to eliminate lock-in prices not for you to all of a sudden pay double.

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There are actually a lot of software companies which give you software updates and upgrades along with support for just one annual cost. If it is time to buy support, you also get software protection, if you need to purchase the latest software, you can support.

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I would pay three times the cost if they would change the name of Guardian Angels to Tech Support.

That's cause you're a mod, dude.