Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Price Increase - FYI

Just got this in my email


20% Price Increase for Annual Maintenance and New Licenses Coming Soon

For the first time in nearly three years, Amazing Charts must raise prices for a clinician license and annual maintenance (Guardian Angel Support).

Effective January 1, 2014, the one-time cost of an Amazing Charts EHR license will be $1200 per clinician. Effective February 1, 2014, the annual maintenance fee will be $1195 per license, starting on your renewal date.

While price increases are never good news, we want to help you better understand why the price must go up. A significant portion of your annual maintenance dollars goes to entities other than Amazing Charts. These include:
The American Medical Association for licensing CPT codes
Microsoft and other companies for licensing essential software code
Newcrop and Surescripts for eRX services
Direct Messaging partners (for MU2)
Patient portal and patient content partners (for MU2)
Immunization registries (for MU2)
As you can see, many of these cost are government mandated and beyond our control. Even at $1195, annual maintenance works to just $3.27 per day. Many of us spend more on a cup of coffee every morning. And even after this price increase, Amazing Charts is still the most affordable and usable EHR solution for small pratices.

If you have any questions or concerns about this price increase, simply reply to this email.

Thank you,
John Squire

No surprise there.

Yeah, but it is only one cup of coffee. So, if you don't use support for a year (which I haven't), then I lost 365 cups of coffee.

I'm OK, with the price increase. They are inevitable. I just find comparisons to daily expenditures patronizing.

I agree. I've already given up a lot of cups of coffee. It would be nice to know that improved service from Newcrop and Surescripts would accompany this increase. What about a money back guarantee? It costs me a lot more than a cup of coffee when electronic prescribing goes down.

I am wondering why the reduced first time cost went from 1995 to 1200 per physician. Will it increase revenue stream to help bring in more $ to make the necessary improvements?

I would be interested to see if there is an increase usage of AC compared to 2-3 years ago and if the % cloud AC users is increasing at a higher rate than expected.

I wonder if the reduction in one time buy cost will actually bring in more revenue than the 20% increase in maintenance cost.

But, I am just a grunt in the field, and trying to figure this out.

They will have to clarify, but one way to read that announcement is that the new first year cost is $1200 + $1195.

It isn't clear to me.

Inspired by Amazing Charts increase being compared to the cost of a cup of coffee, I've begun to accept payment in my office via the Starbucks app.

I think you are right Indy, I think I misunderstood the price reduction for the first time purchase of AC. However, it is not clear.

I was just trying to figure out the reasoning why the first time cost of AC would go down, and thought there may be an explanation behind what seems counter intuitive.

Here is the problem. Currently, the one time fee for each physician is $1,995. As stated in the email, the intent was to increase by 20% for each physician. 20% of $1,995 is $399. Adding this gives you a one-time fee of $2394 which, even on the Price is Right, is a weird figure. $2,299 would have made more sense and maybe that is the price, and 20% was rounded up. I think I would have just said the new price is $2,299 rather than yell out, "20% which is a big increase anywhere.

Personally, I think they would have been better off had they simply said:

Amazing Charts now only costs 122 more cups of coffee, which would have made it much easier for users to realize that they only had approximately four months to go without coffee.

As for support, I would gladly pay for a turbo shot increasing the cost to $4.27 per cup if AC would agree to change the support name from Guardian Angels to Tech Support.

I do have some good news. In order to help offset the price increase, I am going to let in the next ten spammers. I think we all could use some cheap Chinese shoes and discounted flooring.

Here is the way I understood it; I am sure AC will clarify.

Until now:
New license $1,000/provider
Annual support with upgrades $995.
For new sign-up, cost is $1995 which includes the first year of (mandatory) support.

After 1/1/14 new license pricing with 20% increase: $1,200
After 1/1/14 annual support with upgrades: $1,195.

This has not been stated, but I assume:
After 1/1/14, new sign-up, cost is $2,395 which includes the first year of (mandatory) support.

I forgot the new license is different from new sign up including the cost of annual support. This makes sense.

I am not offended by the cup of coffee cost comparison, but Kirkland Pacific Bold at Costco, is less than 50 cents a cup and much better than the take out stuff, especially when you have a K-cup coffee maker in your office.

The single cup K cup coffee maker is about 100 dollars.

So if one can have a choice in coffee, for those of us not choosing MU, is it even possible to have a choice in AC, a format without the MU stuff for a reduced cost? And possibly more palatable and less costly?

I know this sounds crazy, but......

It just might sell better than the fully loaded double shot cream laden stuff over time.

However, I am not complaining about the increase cost, and I agree it is the most affordable and useable.

Well, I make my coffee at home. I would guess it would be 40 cents a cup (I like strong coffee.)

On that basis, 3.27 is over a week of coffee.

You sometimes get what you pay for. To add a portal, required for MU2, is going to cost. While it could be argued that many of us will not certify and thus this is an unnecessary expense, the product needs to be MU2 capable. Some have an Updox portal, but then others don't. We're all in the same boat and it is for the greater good.

I too was really unclear about the $1200. I think Jon hit the nail on the head. This may be a too subtle reference for those who need additional licenses to add them now before the price increase. Hopefully they will chime in with a clarification.

Coffee references aside, while no one likes to see a price increase, I think this one is hard to argue with. A significant portion of the $200/year increase for support apparently goes to fixed (per user) costs over which AC has little control. We have not had a full official announcement yet, but beginning sometime next year, AC will include a "lite" version of UpDox which will act as a portal for meeting MU2 requirements. Even if AC's other costs remained fixed, this portal plus other fixed costs to allow users to achieve MU2 seem to eat up the $200 pretty fast.
When you start at the low end of pricing, a 20% increase every three years easily keeps you at the low end. All that is left to succeed is to continue to improve the product.

http://amazingcharts.com/why-us/transparent-pricing/

Am I missing something or does it not say $1995 per clinician as a one-time fee?

Guess that would make sense. If you purchase EPIC or Centricity for $30,000, you wouldn't pay that much for each clinician.

Or are they saying $1995 to purchase the program first time which includes support and each new physician after is $1,000?




And, I wouldn't say I am offended by the coffee analogy, I just think it is rather juvenile.

Actually, I find the coffee analogy somewhat charming. It is like saying adopting the electronic record in the first place will net you almost the cost of a daily breakfast burrito and tall latte over a 3 year time span in government largesse. And, because it will need constant attention to keep it running, you will get *** Absolutely free*** the company of a group of highly committed professionals whom you will meet online throughout Each and Every Working Day!!! to assist you in not going bankrupt by your decision.

I prefer the price of Internet for a month or donuts.

Basically, I am saying the price increase is fair, and there is no reason to try to sell us on it with the coffee analogy.

I never like the coffee analogy, since with coffee we can easily decide to skip it and keep the money in our pockets. With something like AC we are committed to it, and to change would be a huge inconvenience. Having said that the increase seems fair.

I'm OK with the increase.
I haven't seen anything else advertised for anywhere close to that price.
The "cloud solutions" are "free" (for a price-- your data is their data) or $400-600 or more per provider/month. Which really is a lot of money off the top when fee income hasn't increased to cover the electronic revolution, and there is no other source of revenue to offset it.

I guess hospital clinics can afford EPIC and Centricity -- they rob people blind with their fee structure (that they get away with, but you can't) and their outrageous ancillary charges.

Without AC there would be no EMR for me.

Glad we're we'll be paying more to account, in part, for NewCrop fees. They have been so reliable of late they should be rewarded by paying them more money.

I usually pay less than "$3.27 a day" for a cup of coffee. In fact McDonalds is now giving me the senior discount price of 60 cents without me even asking <sigh>.

Best k-cup coffee discount: Amazon subscribe and save discount on San Francisco Bay 80 pack. Works out to 30 cents a cup!

Coffee aside, I understand need to increase AC price. But no worries: Just recall all those medicare payment increases I've gotten since I paid $250 for amazing charts over ten years ago. Wait a minute ...

A long, long time ago, Family Practice here in Brewer got Centricity, then Logician. Now everything and anything that is bought or built by EMMC has to use Centricity. So every clinical consultant has to use it. And, the weird thing is PCHC our Federally Qualified Health Center uses it. All in all, over 75 doctors use it. It is probably the best EMR for capturing CPT data. But, the format and amount of paperwork is horrendous. They actually list the med list three times. Fortunately, the ED still dictates. What a breath of fresh air. Walk-in care went to Centricity.

Checked with AC Sales the new pricing for the first year will be: $1200 + $1195

[No coffee included]

Actually, fee income has probably dropped over the last couple of years on a per patient basis. And we probably would not have an EMR if not for AC either.

To echo Indy, I too checked with AC.

If you add a new doc (or buy a new license you should have had all along) the price goes up to $1200. Probably good incentive to pick up the correct number of licenses now.

Additionally, new starts will be $1200 (license)+ $1195 (guardian angel) = $2395, so a $400 increase. Again, lower than almost other systems other than the free ones.

I don't mind the cost increase. They should instead focus the message on how they will continue to add value. I'd gladly pay more if they promise better product development, bug fixes, and some true boolean operators in the reporting search function.

Larry

solo IM cincinnati

But, but... I don't drink coffee.