Practice Fusion Proves There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Practice Fusion, the largest cloud-based electronic health records (EHR) platform in the U.S., hit the scenes in 2005 with one big advantage; it was free. As you can imagine, this widely contributed to its success, as free is a stark contrast to the generally very expensive price tags that come along with the programs offered by large health IT companies. However, customers have been taught time and time again there’s no such thing as a free lunch. At least not for long.
The Buy Out Early this year Practice Fusion was purchased by Allscripts for a whopping 100 million dollars. As you can imagine, they didn’t pay this hefty sum for a product that wouldn’t bring them a considerate return on their investment. This is where their new subscription fee comes in. Practice Fusion EHR services are now offered at a $100/month subscription fee for each physician that uses it. This means that even a small independent clinic with 3-5 providers will spend $300-$500/month for their EHR services.
Sticker Shock If you’re suffering from sticker shock you’re not alone. Several sources have suggested that Practice Fusion will likely have a hard time retaining customers now that they’re charging for something that was once completely free. And although they’ve announced that their free users will be switched to a read only version of the software and it will always be free, the