AcerMed news and status request.

Today I was contacted by an AcerMed customer. Apparently AcerMed had contacted him to ask him to be an "investor". He indicated that without investment AcerMed was closing its doors tomorrow.

 This is entirely third hand information and should be treated with a grain of salt, still I thought that AcerMed was going to pull through. I also thought that the AcerMed CEO had agreed to an interview. What happened?

 Regards,

Fred Trotter
 

ftrotter:

I also thought that the AcerMed CEO had agreed to an interview. What happened? 

He missed two interview appointments. Can you imagine the stress?

ftrotter:

Today I was contacted by an AcerMed customer. Apparently AcerMed had contacted him to ask him to be an "investor". He indicated that without investment AcerMed was closing its doors tomorrow.

 This is entirely third hand information and should be treated with a grain of salt, still I thought that AcerMed was going to pull through. I also thought that the AcerMed CEO had agreed to an interview. What happened?

 Regards,

Fred Trotter
 

Some thoughts:

1. I sure hope no competing vendor is low enough to pretend to be an AcerMed customer.

2. Here's a question: How does Fred Trotter become the "go-to" guy when an EMR customer has a problem with their vendor? If my EMR were to go under, I'm not sure Fred would be on my speed dial.

3. Here's what's wierd to me about this story. If you're running an EMR, would you really go to your paying customers for investment capital? I'm not sure I would consider individual primary care docs the prime target for raising venture capital at the last minute. We're a pretty cheap crowd. You might as well pass around a hat. No, this story sounds way too fishy to me. I don't buy it.

4. I did try calling the sales and support lines at AcerMed and all I got was voicemail, but then again, it's Fri afternoon...they're probably all out at happy hour at TGIFriday's. If so, I hope they don't get that big fried onion blossom thingy, they'll have horrible farts for days.

>>> Today I was contacted by an AcerMed customer. Apparently AcerMed had contacted him to ask him to be an "investor". He indicated that without investment AcerMed was closing its doors tomorrow.

Actually, this happened to me years ago, but it all had a happy ending. The Medical Society of Virginia started up their own HMO. They then forced me to invest $1500 to keep the thing afloat (they had about 500 of my patients as customers). By year's end, it went bankrupt, and my one stock was worth pennies on the dollar. I forgot about it, and the other day I looked it up to find that the thing had been bought up by United Healthcare and was worth $8000!

That said, I agree with Cyath- this seems like some kind of scam to me.

If it's legit, though, don't invest in a sinking ship. If they can't stand on their own 2 feet, then no amount of your money will keep them afloat. I got lucky; you may not.

Oh, it's legit alright. That call did happen out of last minute desperation. This is no scam. The scandal is slightly reminiscent of Enron and Golden Parachutes.

http://histalk2.com/2007/07/

From Claude LaMont: “Re: Acermed. They sure appear to have closed up shop. A physician on our medical staff was teed up for hardware install this week. Tech never showed up. Doc called sales guy at home, only to be told that company told him on 7/20 that company had folded and he was terminated. Doc is out a bunch of cash for hardware he cannot use. Nice of the vendor to call, isn’t it?” So much for the idea that CCHIT-certified products are less risky for buyers. Neither, apparently, are those applications that are highly rated by self-proclaimed futurist Mark Anderson of AC Group, who’s taking shots broadside over at EMRUpdate for his company’s previous lofty rankings of Acermed. He posted one rebuttal: “We never had Acermed rated number 1″, but hasn’t posted again in the several days since a reader pointed out of this link or this one. One made this comment: “Mark, when you make your EMR evaluations transparent, no one will question the results. When an EMR that you highly rated goes belly up a few months after your positive rating, and you say you take into account financial viability of the company, people will wonder how good your ratings are.” Some were nastier, either accusing him of various improprieties or demanding to see his raw data (I got a few of those e-mails after we ran some comments he was nice enough to provide a few weeks back). In his defense, Anderson calls himself a futurist, not a clairvoyant, and Acermed’s problems may involve neither functionality nor financial viability. It sounds like a spat among the owners. Bad for their customers, bad for other PM/EMR vendors without a long corporate pedigree, and bad for CCHIT.

I need an Asarum client list so I can make some plans with other victims on what the hell the best course is now. I feel like nobody can be trusted. With all the push to have an EHR, there should be more industry oversight, imo.

Belly up ?  Who uses that term ?  :)

When an EMR that you highly rated goes belly up a few months after your positive rating, and you say you take into account financial viability of the company, people will wonder how good your ratings are.”

http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/p/9475/69128.aspx#69128

Pelayo:

With all the push to have an EHR, there should be more industry oversight, imo.

Does anyone have any suggestions how this might be accomplished? Or is the answer in the data format itself? Making the data interoperable, so that anyone's data can be absorbed by any brand of EHR?

CCHIT forcing EMR's co./vendors to put up 40% of the purchase cost per each unit EMR sold up in Bonds and require that the source code be put in escrow.

A fair start.

How about as a first step CCHIT does some legitimate due diligence (or any other "expert" recommending EMR). For a physician looking for an EMR, if a software you liked had what appeared to meet your needs, a CCHIT certification and a high AC Group ranking, then it would likely add to your belief that it was a good product offered by a reputable company. Yes, it's true that some companies pay their references, some physicians are investors, and asking the company may not yield truthful answers (ask them to put it into writing, that's better than a verbal comment). I'm not ascerting this proves impropriety, but you should be well aware of the motives of those you are talking to. Like many vendors that are active on this forum, acentec does not pay references and we have no physician investors. I am still a firm believer in site visits as a realistic predictor of your future results. Our physicians will bring you into an encounter with them and you can watch them document live, the same way we present it.

The fact is, neither CCHIT or Mark Anderson do anything (evidently) to substantiate company credibility or viability, let alone actual real world functionality. In an extreme, hypothetical case, a company could have every legal, financial, and political problem imaginable, the owners could be escaped felons running from the law, and the software may only run on a single pc with most of the logic hard wired, and neither CCHIT or the AC Group would take it into consideration. I seriously doubt there are any companies in this industry with this profile, but it does illustrate the absurdity (and ineffectiveness) of their evaluation processes as they exist today. In other words, their rankings are utterly worthless and we owe it to eachother as vendors and physicians to publicize the inadequacies and encourage change.

I posted previously about the resources that are readily available to CCHIT and Mark Anderson to lend credibility (and relevancy) to their existence. All of this assumes, of course, that there is a genuine interest with these organizations to put the interests of physicians like Pelayo above their own. That remains to be seen.

Robert Gleeman:

Pelayo:

With all the push to have an EHR, there should be more industry oversight, imo.

Does anyone have any suggestions how this might be accomplished? Or is the answer in the data format itself? Making the data interoperable, so that anyone's data can be absorbed by any brand of EHR?

how about a 100 million dollar general liablity / professional liability insurance policy that will cover its existing and projected client base.  Code interchange is impossible because the coders/programmers would have to "learn" what is being accomplished or being attempted. 

I for one put 0, zero, value into CCHIT certification after this fiasco with Acermed as no attempt has been made public by CCHIT in any attempt to help those swayed by the "certification".  What is the money they collect from the vendors used for?  Lobbying? Public awareness?  Looks to me like a real expensive "stamp of approval". 

Jeff Mongelli:

 

The fact is, neither CCHIT or Mark Anderson do anything (evidently) to substantiate company credibility or viability, let alone actual real world functionality. In an extreme, hypothetical case, a company could have every legal, financial, and political problem imaginable, the owners could be escaped felons running from the law, and the software may only run on a single pc with most of the logic hard wired, and neither CCHIT or the AC Group would take it into consideration. 

Can't speak for either CCHIT or Mark, but while we are roasting them, did it ever occur to anyone that Acermed is a privately held company and that the inner workings of the company are by definition confidential and are available to people like Mark only if the company chooses to divulge them? Further, there is no way to validate the information other than to speculate from the outside by looking at such things as estimated sales figures and approximate company head count. Now I believe that the overwhelming number of companies - including Acermed - are run by honest people. But flogging Mark for not digging further into their financial status misses the point. I don't know what validation Mark did or didn't do, neither does anyone else on this board and even if he requested current financial data, who knows what he received? Dr. Notes hid from the market for a long time by giving people the double shift when they asked for financial data and they fooled some reasonably smart people.

Bob,

I do agree that the overwhelming number of companies are run by honest people, not sure I can include Acermed in that statement, however. I can appreciate your input on the challenges of getting info out of privately held companies. but facts on companies and individuals are available to those that want it, and get permission to obtain it. During 14 years in commercial lending, 7 of them with my own finance company, we invested millions of dollars into small, private companies very successfully. Asking a vendor to complete a credit and public records search authorization is all either CCHIT or Mark Anderson would need to obtain valuable information that would smoke out many ne'er do wells. It's not fool proof, but in this case it would have exposed some critical issues. If it works for lenders, then it should add something to the credibility of these rankings. We never lent a dime without a credit profile on the company and the principals, yet here we are asking physicians to "invest" thousands into companies that have a high gloss finish and a rusted core (theoretically). It just seems to me to be the obvious next step for these organizations to take, and if a vendor doesn't want to play ball, then that should be so noted. My bet is most vendors would participate because like you said, most are run by honest people.

What will come out later today is that this issue goes well beyond Mark Anderson not digging into financials.

A little birdie tells me Mark Anderson's testimony will be opened up for public scrutiny... and, apparently, he revelaed some rather disconcerting truths under oath - kind of verifying what I have been saying all along.

Jeff Mongelli:

Bob,

I do agree that the overwhelming number of companies are run by honest people, not sure I can include Acermed in that statement, however. I can appreciate your input on the challenges of getting info out of privately held companies. but facts on companies and individuals are available to those that want it, and get permission to obtain it. During 14 years in commercial lending, 7 of them with my own finance company, we invested millions of dollars into small, private companies very successfully. Asking a vendor to complete a credit and public records search authorization is all either CCHIT or Mark Anderson would need to obtain valuable information that would smoke out many ne'er do wells. It's not fool proof, but in this case it would have exposed some critical issues. If it works for lenders, then it should add something to the credibility of these rankings. We never lent a dime without a credit profile on the company and the principals, yet here we are asking physicians to "invest" thousands into companies that have a high gloss finish and a rusted core (theoretically). It just seems to me to be the obvious next step for these organizations to take, and if a vendor doesn't want to play ball, then that should be so noted. My bet is most vendors would participate because like you said, most are run by honest people.

What will come out later today is that this issue goes well beyond Mark Anderson not digging into financials.

Jeff,

It is not my desire nor my role to defend Mark Anderson, but understand that participation in Mark's survey is voluntary and there is no way to compel a privately held company to complete a credit check to participate, let alone to tell the truth. Lending institutions have the obvious upper hand - tell us about yourself or we won't lend you the money that you want. I am also sure that if Mark did have a way to compel people to supply information about themselves, it would be the source of much crying and gnashing of teeth from some people on this board.

I will await the revealing of great secrets implied by you and Dave Winn . The bottom line is that if you are crooked, the presumption that most people will make about the general honesty of people in the market will allow you to hide your real agenda for a long time. Eventually however, the truth will out most of the time.

Jeff Mongelli:

Bob,

I do agree that the overwhelming number of companies are run by honest people, not sure I can include Acermed in that statement, however. I can appreciate your input on the challenges of getting info out of privately held companies. but facts on companies and individuals are available to those that want it, and get permission to obtain it. During 14 years in commercial lending, 7 of them with my own finance company, we invested millions of dollars into small, private companies very successfully. Asking a vendor to complete a credit and public records search authorization is all either CCHIT or Mark Anderson would need to obtain valuable information that would smoke out many ne'er do wells. It's not fool proof, but in this case it would have exposed some critical issues. If it works for lenders, then it should add something to the credibility of these rankings. We never lent a dime without a credit profile on the company and the principals, yet here we are asking physicians to "invest" thousands into companies that have a high gloss finish and a rusted core (theoretically). It just seems to me to be the obvious next step for these organizations to take, and if a vendor doesn't want to play ball, then that should be so noted. My bet is most vendors would participate because like you said, most are run by honest people.

What will come out later today is that this issue goes well beyond Mark Anderson not digging into financials.

Jeff that is a great idea.  Finally something CCHIT would be valuable for.  Of course, CCHIT goal is to sell EMRs, not be valuable to patients / doctors.  So, of course they won't do it.