Some Inside Baseball for the EHR World

Written by: John Lynn

I thought I’d take this moment to take a quick look at what many might consider inside baseball when it comes to the EHR world. Although, I’ve been intrigued by a couple announcements that were made recently.

The first announcement is Kareo buying the Epocrates EHR which came just in time for HIMSS. You might remember that I covered the Epocrates EHR on a number of occasions. I first saw the Epocrates EHR at HIMSS in 2010, and subsequently wrote about Epocrates “killing” their EHR immediately after launch. When that happened, I think we all wondered what would happen with the Epocrates EHR code base. You don’t just throw a meaningful use certified EHR to the curb do you?

We now know the answer to that question is no. Kareo saw fit to acquire the Epocrates EHR software and Dr. Tom Giannulli, formerly of Epocrates, is now the Kareo CMIO. I can imagine that Dr. Giannulli wanted to stay with his baby (the Epocrates EHR). I’m also quite intrigued that Kareo is offering the EHR for free (at least for now?). The funny thing is that I had written that the Epocrates EHR should be free. I guess I was sort of right, but I definitely didn’t think that the Epocrates EHR would become free since Kareo makes their money from the Practice Management and billing side of the house. We’ll see how that strategy works for Kareo. In some ways it’s taking a page out of the AthenaHealth playbook.

What might be simply an odd coincidence of timing (or not), Practice Fusion just sent out a letter (shown below) to its users from Practice Fusion Founder and CEO, Ryan Howard. In it he acknowledges Practice Fusion’s past challenges with billing, and he outlines their strategy on making the Practice Fusion billing situation better.

Does this relate to Kareo? Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that many Practice Fusion users are on Kareo as well since it was Practice Fusion’s only major Practice Management software partner when Practice Fusion started. It seemed like a great match since Practice Fusion only had EHR, and Kareo only had Practice Management. Kareo now has an EHR, and Practice Fusion is working on billing and practice management. I guess we should have seen this coming.

Here’s the full email I got from Practice Fusion (Full Disclosure: They said Dr. Lynn, but I’m not a doctor.):

Hi Dr. Lynn,

The Practice Fusion team takes pride and appreciates your role in making us the fastest growing EHR community in the US.

We also recognize that billing has not been our strongest suit. Improved superbills and an updated payer list have been highly requested by our user community.

That’s why, by the end of March, we’re going to deliver you major new enhancements to your billing experience:

• A comprehensive, streamlined superbill, directly integrated with your workflow
• Flexible reports for billing users
• The ability to export billing data to most major billing systems
• New billing software and service partners with more economical pricing

This means you can stick with the exact billing workflow and system you use today in your practice. We’re building the ability to integrate directly by allowing you to export data to your billing system via HL7. If you prefer superbills, you’ll soon have a drastically improved superbill to work with. And if you’re looking for a new billing system altogether, we’ll also have new, low-cost partners coming soon.

We’re excited to be making your EHR faster, more flexible and easier-to-use. Lastly, our commitment to you has not changed since the day you signed on—Practice Fusion will deliver all this for free. Stay tuned for our billing revamp at the end of March!

Best,
Ryan Howard
Founder and CEO
Practice Fusion
ceo@practicefusion.com