Home Forums Discussions General Discussion latest upgrade

As an informal survey, is everyone Satisfied with the latest Upgrade version of amazing charts?
I ask because My current version (6.3.3) is running well on my computers And upgrading Is a bit of the pain Because I have to call my computer guy To do it so it is smooth.
Do the benefits Outweigh the headaches?
Nate

If you are ok with the medication database and are not having problems now I would wait...and watch out for rootkit virus's....just recovered....

Nate,

Couple of things - do you currently use the billing/collections reporting in AC?

Second is know that rollback is not trivial, it requires either using a server restore point, or a complete OS re-install (per AC support).

If you go to 6.6.2, the positives are the letter-writer, and increased eRX functionality [when the pharmacy network is up].

I can give you more specifics if you sue the billing functionality.

Thank yall. I think I'll wait a little while. Don't fix something that's not broke yet.

Nate

I'm also still on 6.3.3. Tried 6.5 when it came out, didn't like the bugs, and rolled back. Think I'll stick to this version, which is very good, until a more stable version that doesn't have the vaccine issues.

I am reluctant to upgrade to 6.6.x from 6.5 due to concerns expressed here and other discussions. We do not use AC for billing.

you will need to upgrade the Server also with more memory and latest Windows Server OS, as we were told by support from AC
Good things in upgrade looks like ability to choose Ins co names (codified) , keep old ins co info, updated med database, Letter writer update etc.

I upgraded earlier this week. So far, I am not happy that I did.
For my part my work flow is not good.... the "improved" letter writer is not anything more than a blank page that opens up. No header, no date, no patient information etc. Not obvious how to get it to work and unable to find any information in "I want to help myself" or that I can find on the board here.
The patient chart opens up to the same size as the AC background and all of us in my office have accidently closed AC when we only intended to close a chart. This happens several times a day to each of us.
Some charts are reappearing in my in box although I have already opened them , added information and forwarded the chart to another box.
The front office gal is not happy with the insurance migration; it is a substantial slowdown for her. She says that in the ( very) long run it might end up being useful.
If I weren't concerned that switching back to the 6.3 I had been using would increase the insurance work for my staff I would do it real quick.
I think it is going to be time consuming to figure out what to do about the letter writer. I need to send letters back to the referring physicians and can't take 10 minutes per letter.

To get any benefit from the letter writer, you have to invest some time to setup templates. It functions like the M$ Word mail-merge functionality.

Something to be aware of is that they functioning of the daily collections report and other aspects of the billing in AC has changed. According to AC, it was working wrong before, but now is working right. Of course, that means the ways you have learned to use AC may not work now because they were wrong.

A client who was devastated by the upgrade and did a hard roll-back was able to demonstrate a bug in the 6.6.1 and 6.6.2 releases having to do with adjusting entries - that bug has been passed to AC Dev to be fixed.

Users on the new versions report the same or slower performance, we haven't heard any clients reporting faster.

Because there is no easy way to roll-back, most practices are waiting to see a version that is stable and has functionality that makes the cost and risk of upgrading worthwhile.

I have been very anxious to have the improved letter writer... for years. Towards that end, I started beta testing with V6.5. Due to reports of problems with 6.5 and more recent versions, we are still on 6.3.3.

One thing that was clear to me from the beta testing, was that the new letter writer could not be fully put to use "out of the box". It was also not intuitively obvious how to efficiently set it up; the process takes some time. We had a plan for doing so, but never implemented it as we are still using the older product.

Bottom line is that I would second Indy's advice. Just as you will need to devote some time and effort to handling changes in insurance entry in 6.6, you will also need to invest time and thought into preparing your templates so you can use the letter writer. You should probably look at these things in a "sandbox" before doing a full install. That is NOT the view of someone who is using 6.6; just the cautious word of someone who previewed it.

I gave up on the 6.6 letter writer...it is absolutely worthless...locked up my system....and guardian support was apologetic at best....they admitted that it was crap...and is on the fix list....LOL....BUT Merry Christmas to all....

I could make some snide comment about the efficacy of an item being placed on the AC "fix list", but in the spirit of Todd's post, I will simply say Merry Christmas to all my fellow AC-ers.

I'm actually pretty happy with it for the most part. I love the letter writer. Love it. Have set up templates in it with my letterhead and it's just great. I absolutely despised the older letter writer so this was a welcomed addition.

The one thing my office continues to complain about is the fact that when they enter a new patient (which is the majority of what I see), the "billing" tab is grayed out. So they have to enter the patients demographics, hit save, close the window, then re-open the window to be able to click the billing and enter insurance info. A major problem when you are trying to do this quickly over the phone from referring docs. I think they've almost given up, take the demographics and wait for the referring doc to fax us any insurance info.

Wow..glad to hear someone got the letter writer going...mine just hangs

We are also doing well with the letter writer. You have to take some time to set up your templates and kind of figure it out as you go along, but it is a vast improvement over the prior "writer".