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Topic starter
As a direct GE customer that uses the Centricity Practice Management product and Centricity EDI Services only, I have been very frustrated with our relationship with GE. I would love to get a sense of how many PM only customers exist and whether there would be any interest in approaching GE as a group to address our problems and concerns. Some examples would include a) lack of communication from sales, b) the need for improved performance in the scheduling component, c) improved control over statements, d) lack of support for updates, etc. (I am fine with paying for upgrades to a new version but feel there should not be an extra charge to install Service Packs or for support when a Service Pack goes wrong especially given the cost of annual service.)
We have been a Centricity PM customer since 2002. (Our installation occurred during the transition to GE.) It is my impression these days that it is almost impossible to get GE's attention unless you are an EMR customer with a fairly large installation. There have been little to no improvements to the practice management product in years and while I understand that federal mandates have driven the focus to the EMR product, I feel the support fees we pay every year should provide product improvements and stellar support regardless of what EMR we use or the size of our practice. (We made a conscious decision to install an EMR tailored to ophthalmology which has some pretty specific needs and we did not want to build from scratch. We also understood and respected that GE did not want to customize for this specialty.)
I will say this - Centricity EDI Services and the Centricity support team have always been good to us and that is what keeps us with GE. I have not attended Users' Group meetings for a while because they are so heavily focused on EMR but I am attending the meeting in Phoenix and hope to gain some ground and find appropriate contacts while I am there. Would love to start a coalition of PM only customers who could bring some force to bear on GE - hence this post.
Please let me know if you are interested!
Thanks!
Posted : May 12, 2016 4:59 am
Hi:
We have been a Centricity customer since 2007 and you are correct. GE has slacked off on providing helpful, functional updates to their PM side. While we also have EMR which has its own share of problems, our PM side is what keeps our practice running and it is very frustrating when GE ignores our PM problems. I would be very much interested in approaching GE as part of a group to get some changes identified and resolved. I think, as paying customers, we should task GE with providing a better product to us and not cater to the "EHR incentive" trend.
I am not going to Phoenix, though I have wanted to go to some of the recent conferences.
Please let me know.
Michelle Carabin
Professional Orthopaedic Associates
Posted : May 12, 2016 7:09 am
I too have been expressing concern about the lack of support from GE related to the PM side of the world. We have experienced great support with Centricity EDI but that is only a small fraction of the revenue cycle. We have a laundry list of items that we would like to see enhancements on.
- Night end batching for insurance verification
- Statements printing with the decimal place in the right location
- Ability to script/auto process daily processing of claims to insurance
- Automate month end close via a script
- Ability to script/auto process weekly statements processing
- Auto post payments of collection agency, lock box, and other location that are provided in an appropriate format
- And the list goes on........
I have been exposed to many PM systems in my career and feel the list above should be embedded into a system. We should not have to beg for them!!!! When I approached these questions/concerns with GE, I too have been told that once things settle down with the EMR side we will be focusing efforts on the PM side. I personally do not think that this focus will ever occur with current staffing levels. CMS will always be involved in HealthCare and the EMR will need all current (if not more) hands on deck. In my opinion GE needs to be proactive, not reactive to the environment and obtain more PM support staff. If we can not figure out ways to keep the revenue cycle side healthy, the EMR side will not need any support as customer will need to seek a more efficient & effective system.
Posted : May 12, 2016 10:36 am
Topic starter
Excellent points, Kimberly! And you are absolutely right that EMR customers should also support improvements in the PM.
I will pursue this as far as I can - collecting support from other clients and documenting PM problems. I will also see what I can accomplish in Phoenix.
Will update you as I make progress.
Thanks!
Mary Pat
Posted : May 13, 2016 4:11 am
Topic starter
Thanks for the great feedback, Michelle. I will continue to chase this down and will keep you in the loop!
Mary Pat
Posted : May 13, 2016 4:12 am
