Does Spending More on EHR Mean You Get More?

There is a really ugly myth out there that I’d like to dispel. The myth is: if you spend more money on an EHR, you’re getting more EHR. From years of experience in the EHR world (Will be 8 years in April), this statement is just not true. In fact, in many cases you can actually get more EHR from a more moderately priced EHR than you can from a really expensive EHR.

A few months back I wrote about how a clinic’s Second EHR Purchase was their Most Expensive EHR purchase. I think this is largely the case because of the myth mentioned above. Once a clinic has a failed EHR experience, the budget goes out the window and the clinic is happy to spare no expense to ensure that the next EHR they purchase is better than their first EHR purchase. Luckily, there are other factors involved in a second EHR purchase which make it more likely to succeed, but I don’t think that cost is one of them.

To be honest, I’m not sure how some EHR vendors get away with the EHR pricing that they do. With more than 300 EHR vendors out there, you can find pretty much every pricing plan under the sun. From Free EHR to High Priced EHR and every price in between. The reality I’ve seen is that there are good and bad EHR across the entire spectrum of EHR price ranges. You can find Jabba the Hutt EHR (see more about Jabba the Hutt EHR’s in this post or this one) at every EHR price point.

EHR price is always a part of every EHR selection process, but don’t let price be the main factor in how you select an EHR for your clinic.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

8 Comments

  • Price will always be a decision point, even though upfront costs have little correlation with quality. Unfortunately, EHRs often harbor hidden fees in one form or another that can be rather irritating. A reasonably priced solution may end up costing your practice thousands if it’s layout is complicated and results in a loss of productivity, and some vendors will force customers into paying for expensive on-site training etc. Be sure to read the fine print of your user-agreement before signing.

  • All of this reeks of EHR being equated a ‘piece of software’ like Microsoft Office that you plug-n-play. Even the most unsophisticated user interface and ‘complicated’ systems work because of proper setup, proper training and proper support. This is what you pay for – not the software.

    Also, look for ‘Practice Business Solutions’ not just a clinical EHR.

  • I don’t see a lot of correlation between cost and capability – though extra capability will cost. If, for instance, you need an EHR that works well for an unusual specialty, it is likely to take some money to make it happen. But basic EHR functionality certainly does not have to be expensive. I’ve read numerous times that one determinant of cost for some products is based on the estimate of the MU money that can come out of using an EHR, that some vendors upped their prices to make sure that they got their ‘cut’. I don’t know how true that is, but I certainly would not tell someone that the more expensive an EHR is, the better.

  • What is ‘More EMR/EHR’? Is it More Features? More Training? More Support? More Implementation?
    The corollary to above is –
    BETTER – features, training, support, implementation?

    I have seen a trend where product pricing is moderate, but companies are cutting corners in support and training, which is the worst place to cut corners.

  • […] We should know pretty soon whether hospitals made the right IT bets, as the forces pushing them to spend are cresting. But if they find that they need to rethink their strategy, let’s hope they didn’t bet the farm on what they have;  as my colleague John points out, there’s a myth floating around out there that the more expensive an EMR is, the better it is. […]

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