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So I just received our first quote for what was originally known as Project Sequoia now known as Hospital Connect. This would allow our physicians to gather information from our local hospitals and directly import said documentation instead of having it faxed over and then scanned in. Needless to say GE is getting rich off of nickle and diming the hell out of us. We have 9 physicians and 12 midlevels and for us to use Hospital Connect it is going to cost us $42,280 the first year. How on earth are we supposed to justify this type of expenditure to automate a process that is already being done manually. $25,000 to implement and $1440 a month to connect to Hospital Connect is outrageous by anyone's standards. I can't wait to see what the price tag is going to look like for their Population Health product due out in a couple months. Why do we pay GE so much money for maintenance and support when anything they upgrade they charge us extra for?
Posted : January 5, 2018 3:12 am
First off, I agree 100% here. Our practice is licensed for 120 providers.... just for GE alone... we pay close to $30,000 per month. We definitely don't get $30,000 worth of support per month. This doesn't even count Biscom, Eligibility, Visualutions, blah blah blah. The easy answer to fix any problems it seems is "you need to update to the latest version". Well that costs money, especially when you have to upgrade 60+ terminal servers, virtual servers, etc.
To put things in a better perspective of their outrageous costs... I know of a hospital purchasing a complete EMR. This includes Hospital I/P, Clinic O/P, HR, Time and Attendance, Accounts Payable, PACS, RIS, LIS, Payroll, Dietary, Document management.... literally every possible component and their cost was ZERO up front... and $14,000 per month. FOR EVERYTHING.
I definitely see our facility looking at a different solution in the near future.
Posted : January 5, 2018 4:17 am
What EMR is that?
Posted : January 11, 2018 8:47 am
We've been telling our (always revolving) GE reps this same thing for years. They haven't changed the core functionality of the program much in the 12 years I've been dealing with it. Even 10 years ago, the EMR didn't provide basic functionality like document management or e-prescribing out of the box without third party products. They've been barely keeping up with regulatory changes on the EMR side and even that is often done with third party additions (Qvera, Imprivata/Symantec EPCS mess, EMPA, etc). The PM side has changed even less and they want to sell you AR Accelerator, Eligibility, you need a third party to send statements, reminder calls, etc. All of this comes with additional cost and more importantly (especially if you have multiple databases) complexity in maintenance and upgrades.
Our company has taken on 32 more providers recently. GE lost out on that business because they simply can't compete on price or ease of implementation. Every solution has its pluses and minuses, but we've been very disappointed in the lack of feature additions into the core GE product.
The Project Northstar stuff seems kind of promising as if they know they need to change the way they do things, but if they do it as one cloud bolt on after another to their existing less than stellar product, it's going to be a disappointment in the end.
Posted : January 18, 2018 2:13 am
