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Should EMRUpdate interview Mark Anderson (of the AC Group fame) ?
Thoughts ? Any questions you want us to consider ? We need some toughies.
email:
Mark R. Anderson, CEO AC Group, Inc. 118 Lyndsey Drive Montgomery, TX 77316 (c) 281-413-5572 (f) 832-550-2338
manderson:I wonder why anyone would object to getting the facts rather than the numerous misinformation on this site?
So far 100% seem to think that it's a good idea.
I think everyone would benefit from clearing up some of this misinformation about how the AC Group reaches EMR decisions. I think accomplishing that would be a tall order. In some respects, I blame the AC Group itself for some of it's fingerpointing and misfortunes. Why ? The closed door, "Black Box" method of how you reach your conclusions is not open. If how the decisions were reached was more transparent, there'd be less fingerpointing.
Questions I like to hear Mark speak on:
CCHIT
The failure of AC Group to identify Dr.Notes as high risk 5 years ago.
Consideration for broadening AC Group's research to another category: EMRs less than 5,000/year
A few questions that might have interesting answers
Disclaimer: I am the founder of e-MDs - highest rated EHR in 5 consecutive AAFP and ACP physician surveys
CCHIT - the government’s approach to set some guidelines. With more than 290 EHR vendors in the marketplace, physicians have been asking for base-line standards. There are too many EHR vendors stating claims that they cannot meet. Basically, many physicians do not believe the claims of the vendors. Therefore, CCHIT sets the base-line. Do you have to be CCHIT to be a good product? Of course not, but in the future, a physician might not be able to get malpractice insurance or payments from Medicare without it. If this occurs, physicians will only purchase from CCHIT vendors. Therefore, only CCHIT vendors will survive financially.
With 28 vendors passing already and another 20-40 passing in the next year, we might have more than 50 CCHIT vendors. How will that help the physicians? 50 choices is 40 choices too many already. Physicians want a short list and you cannot always trust want some of the vendor.
I must admit, I never considered charging the vendors to go through our similar process. I have heard that CCHIT is charging vendors over $25,000 for participating. We charge $0.00 for our survey. Are we charging too much? I have not heard a broad range of complaints about paying the $25,000 to CCHIT, but at least on this site, there are a few vendors – almost always the same vendors, complaining about a NO COST option. We predicted who would past and are predicting who will pass in the next year. So far we are 96% correct. The only vendor we missed was one that we had never heard off and they had less than 30 providers using their system.
The failure of AC Group to identify Dr. Notes as high risk 5 years ago. Five years ago, we did not evaluate company viability. Today we try to but the majority of the public vendors will not release any financial information. They all state that they bare making money – then a few months later that go under. Seven of the ten vendors that we rated low in company viability have already gone out of business or have been sold. Therefore, we are getting better.
Consideration for broadening AC Group's research to another category: EMRs less than $5,000/year. Yes, I would be happy to. I assume you are talking about a purchase price of Less than $5,000. Can vendors survive with only charging $5,000? Yes, eCW, MCS, and a few other highly rated CCHIT vendors are already at the $5,000 level.
My report already has functionality to price factor that shows many of the smaller priced vendors have a better price to functionality rating than the big named higher costs vendors. Once again, I think many on this site have never the 290 page report. I think many here on EMRupdate only look at the ranking and have not read the actual report.
Wow,
This email was just forwarded to me. Mark is emailing all of his vendor contacts to ask them to post on his behalf. Incredible.
From: Mark Anderson [mailto:mark.anderson@acgroup.org]Sent: Wed 10/18/2006 4:11 PMTo: 'Patty Looney'; 'Cline, Pat'; sameer@eclinicalworks.com; girish.kumar@eclinicalworks.com; Greg Shilling; Michael Stearns; Tee Green; smit@medcomsys.com; Todd.Helmink@misyshealthcare.com; udayan@medcomsys.com; Krista.Fuller@misyshealthcare.com; iellison@nextgen.com; ike_ellison@nextgen.com; patrick_cline@nextgen.com; AliciaB@PMSI.com; andyu@PMSI.com; mdailey@PMSI.com; wlacasse@PMSI.com; info@propractica.com; sean@propractica.comSubject: FW: AAN Report and EMRUpdate
In looks like Dr. Winn and Dr Murrdock are continuing is on-going personal attach of me and AC Group and now the AAN process.
http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/thread/57004.aspx
If you are interested in responding to his lies and mis-information, please click on the attached link and respond.
I haven't received an email from Mark Anderson, but he did work for us two years ago. We are basically happy with his performance. He more than earned his modest fee just in the contract negotiations.
Why is it this group likes to throw him under the bus every 6 months or so? Is it because this "unbiased, independent, impartial" website is actully stuffed with biased, hyper sensitive people with a vested interested in their EMR/EHR products pushing their own agenda?
I've gone over the posts on this site for quite some time, and I've noticed that he does not hype himself or start these flame wars. His name is always brought up by the few usual suspects, and then the bashing begins. I can just imagine the "unbiased, independent, impartial" questions you will ask in the interview: 1) Are you out of your impaired mind, or just a complete idiot? 2) When did you stop beating your wife? 3) What's it like having a three-chambered heart?...
Why don't you guys just move on?
JLB:Before this string goes south, did Mr. Anderson ever reply about participating in an interview?
Yes he did. He's interested in clearing up some misconceptions.
Great questions as usual Dr. Winn, CEO of an EMR vendor
Let’s start with the financial disclaimer that has been on our web site for years.
Although ACG receives fees from vendors, ACG does NOT perform any activities and does NOT receive any funding that promotes one vendor over another, helps a vendor win deals, or helps a vendor win competitions over another vendor. ACG remains independent from all vendors. Additionally, ACG does NOT install, train, or customize vendor applications. Our belief is that if you work with certain vendors, then there is a perception that you might select one vendor over another. In ACG’s case, there is NO financial or operational value to recommend one vendor over another. ACG stays independent.
Now lets get down to your specific questions:
1. Have you been paid consulting fees by the companies in your survey?
2. Can you rank from highest to lowest the amount of consulting fees you have been paid by each company and then compare that order to your rankings of these companies in your report and other surveys?
· 9 of the top 10 vendors have paid us to speak or to fly to their site to review their product development plans within the past 2 years. 42 other EHR vendors have also paid us for speaking , research, and vendor briefings. We do not charge any vendors for web cast demos or phone calls, unlike many other firms. To date 4.8% of our income has come for vendors requesting research
3. Will you continue to claim in your survey report that you verify your survey results and ranking with certain companies even when the persons you speak to at those companies deny that you ever did any verification?
4. Have you ever accepted fees from two different vendors pitted against one another at the same time while also representing and collecting fees from a physician group who you were representing?
6. If the answer to # 4 is yes, do you consider that ethical? Yes, as long as there is no connection to the client project. Does adverting and paying to be on this site, ethical? Of course not. You have also falsely claimed in the past that the TEPR and MSHUG award was based on fees paid. Once again , it appears that any vendor you can claim anything without any proof on this site.
8. Would it surprise you to know that e-MDs has correspondence that substantiates some of these questions? I would not be surprised of anything you claim. I am even more surpised of what your employees state about you. But there is no reason to go into that.
10. Have you threatened to sue a vendor CEO because he stated his opinion about your tactics? YES, when they lie and do not state facts, yes we will sue. Yes we have been successful when vendors post lies on sites like this. Lets get down to the facts instead of vendor complaints when they do not win all of the deals that they are involved in. Just like any other person that is personally attached by lies, if you make false claims about someone, you should be sued.
11. Have you ever threatened to remove a company from your recommendation list because they were critical of the ACGroup survey? Oh wait, I can answer that one, yes you did. http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/thread/10923.aspx Response: Yes, if you do not want to be listed in our report, yes, I would be happy to remove you from the list. We have 32 vendors that have completed our survey and have asked that their low results not be published. We are not inclined to list vendors with low ratings, only those with good ratings. As you contend, you do not think our report is fair, then why would you want to be listed in our report. But your staff sees the value. You are the only one on this site that sees the need to “threaten” others that do not agree with you. I prefer honest discussion.
Dr. Winn
Your opinions are valued by all, including me. As I have always stated, you are one of the leading physician vendors in the marketplace and your views should be listen too my more government and standard organizations. However, your continual personal attack of everyone that does match your opinion does not help you or your company.
As a small solo physician, I enjoy reading any reports out there. I've read Mark's reports for several years and were partly my beginning understanding of EMRs.
However, for my situation, they were not of much use because it would just mention, but not focus, on EMR's that fit my cost to function to budget ratio.
Sure eCW EMR alone can be purchased for less than $5k, but it doesn't mention the additional thousands of dollars for implementation and training and the near $10,000 server they require to run their package. Compare that to Amazing Charts which costs $1,000 and is so straight forward it requires no training. I would like to see his reports help the little guy like me on a shoe string budget. EMRs that cost less than $4,000 and very little training. In this category, the only CCHIT certified product I'm aware of will be SoapWare pending version 5 (Wonder if Mark is even aware of its entirely new renovation).
dagmar:I haven't received an email from Mark Anderson, but he did work for us two years ago. We are basically happy with his performance. He more than earned his modest fee just in the contract negotiations.
He chose Synamed for you ? What was the fee ?
Why is it this group likes to throw him under the bus every 6 months or so? Is it because this "unbiased, independent, impartial" website is actually stuffed with biased, hyper sensitive people with a vested interested in their EMR/EHR products pushing their own agenda?
Well, sure people have their biases. It's just that over time these become apparent. Mark has a plethora of information that he could contribute here and people might over time understand his methodologies and that can't be anything but good for Mark.
I certainly don't think AC Group's methods of EMR evaluation help small office doctors pick an EMR that works for their business/office. If I was a 50-100 doctor group, I wouldn't care what people at emrupdate think and I'd look into hiring Mark Anderson to help find and EMR for my mega-group.
As it stands, emrupdate might be considered the antithesis of AC Group. Our opinions are free, his are expensive. We have an open process, they have a closed process. Anyone can post here, AC Group doesn't even have a forum for internet discussion. Maybe you get what you pay for ? And maybe that's bad news.
Oh yea, more questions:
I can just imagine the "unbiased, independent, impartial" questions you will ask in the interview: My Response:
1) Are you out of your impaired mind, or just a complete idiot? Yes to both since most people would never bother responding to this type of false claims. Why do I bother responding? I stopped responding about 6-months ago to the personal attacks. KLAS, Gartner, Cooker, Forester, TEPR, MSHUG, HIMSS all rate vendors. Where are the personal attacks on them. We all list the same top 8-10 vendors. Are we all wrong?
2) When did you stop beating your wife? I travel too much to have a wife. 230 days on the road in the last 12 months
3) What's it like having a three-chambered heart?... It's great. I allows me to put up with false claims from bias vendors and it helps when you are working 80 hours per week. We signed over 100 practices in the last year that represents over 2,000 physicians. Our top listed vendors won 97% of these deals. The same vendors that are wining 90% of the deals in the marketplace today. I guess our projects are matching the rest of the industry. Or is it that the industry is matching our projects results.