Its time to start talking about value.

Right now the conversation about EMRs and Practice Management software is almost purely centered around price. It’s time to talk about value. Professionals in our industry need to be thinking and talking more about value and opportunity cost.

Switching EMRs can be a difficult and unpleasant task, and frankly many organizations find themselves stuck in software they’re unhappy with because they can’t bear to go through the change, or for the mere fact that it’s cheap. When that software is limiting you, and you can’t reach your business goals, or perhaps merely slowing your staff down, there is no greater cost.

Also, when you have to buy three or four other software programs to fill the gaps, and you suddenly find your data is in separate silos of autonomy, you’ll find yourself drowning in spreadsheets trying to make sense of it all. If this is you, you’re wasting money, and more importantly time that could be spent with patients, or your family.

Almost every day, we get emails and phone calls from clinic owners asking us “how much does it cost?” and we hear quite often that there are “cheaper” EMRs out there. This is the conversation we hear at all the conferences and trade shows. This seems to be all anyone is really talking about anymore. How on Earth do you compare an investment into a powerhouse software ecosystem like Practice Pro to the cost of our “cheaper” competitors? It truly is apples and oranges.

When we get the price question we’d love to answer “nothing” since our software is not designed to cost you a single dime. Everything we’ve done for the last 17 years is to build a powerful system that will help you maximize your profitability, grow a successful business and something you won’t ever outgrow. But we can’t say that, because we’re not the least expensive EMR out there.

We can however say we’re the single most powerful EMR out there, and the very best value in our industry. We can tout our features, and we can explain all the reasons we’re the best. But we all know every other EMR vendor out there will tell you exactly the same thing, and unless you know all the pitfalls, you may not actually understand the immeasurable cost of a “cheap” EMR.

Let’s look under the hood.

As you can see, there’s a lot of moving parts to Practice Pro. Those are features built to work together, in a fully integrated system for your highest level of success. You’ll notice they’re depicted as gears. This is because gears work closely together in a precise manner.

We didn’t acquire outside software companies and try to mash the functionality together like others have done. We’ve spent 17 years building, tweaking and perfecting those gears from the ground up. You could say Practice Pro was meticulously hand crafted, long before the era of snapping things together arrived. And this mattersa lot

The other guys.

Notice a difference?

Theres quite a bit missing, and a brick wall. Practice Pro has no brick walls. It was built so that every feature and module works together as one seamless, well-oiled machine.Notice in the diagram above, it’s missing one of the most important features. Sure other EMRs claim to offer integrated billing, but its still a disconnected third-party app. Its not the same as the billing module being built into the native application like Practice Pro. Their billing data flows only one direction, so you cant track payments starting with scheduling all the way through to discharge. Plus youll have no KPIs for collection per visit, payments or monitoring your overall financial health.

This missing component will become one of the biggest hurdles in growing and managing your practice.

We get it. Building great software that’s secure, stable and fits your workflow isn’t easy to build from scratch. It takes years. We were the very first web-based EMR in rehab, and we’ve had a decade head-start on many of our competitors. We helped pioneer this entire industry. With 17 years under our belt, we’ve had a lot of time to build the robust features you’ll find in Practice Pro.

Very few people know how many hundreds or even thousands of hours can go into a single software feature. Our philosophy is very different. We approach every feature from a success perspective. Will this help our users be better at what they do? Will it help them see more patients? Will it make their jobs easier? Ultimately, will it help them to be more successful as a business? What tools will they need 10 years down the road when they want to expand, or merge.

We’ve got it all, under one roof, in one single system.

Practice Pro is the Operating System for your Business

There is a big difference between the Windows operating system, and Microsoft Word. Word does one thing, and does it pretty well. But it can’t do everything you need. If you only had Microsoft Word, you’d pretty quickly find yourself needing Excel and Powerpoint, and even then you’d still be limited. I think you’d agree, it would be better to get Windows bundled with the full Microsoft Office ecosystem.

Think about it, you’d never try to compare the price of Windows to Microsoft Word, because it’s apples and oranges.

This has been our biggest challenge, how do we change the perception that Practice Pro is like all the other EMRs? We change the conversation. We change it from price, to value. We change it from cost, to opportunity.

Greybeard the Ship Engineer.

Greybeard was an old retired ship engineer. He started out as a mechanic as a young teen, and after a long career that spanned almost five decades, he finally retired. A few weeks after his retirement, a local cargo company had one of their biggest ships break down. This ship was essential to the companys operation and would cost millions to replace. The company’s mechanic tried and tried, but just couldnt get the engine to run again. One of the ship’s employees mentioned Greybeard to one of the owners as a real expert on ship engines.

After the owners went to talk with Greybeard, he agreed to take a look at the ship. He arrived carrying a large bag of tools with him, and immediately went to work. He walked all around the engine and inspected it very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ships owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a big hammer. He walked over and gave the engine a big whack with the hammer. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

The next day the owners received a bill from Greybeard for ten thousand dollars.

What?! the owners exclaimed. He hardly did anything! ten thousand dollars for 10 minutes work?

They were very upset, so they wrote the old man a note saying, Please send us an itemized bill.

The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer $2.00
Knowing where to tap $9,998.00