Are you RENTING your software? You may have noticed that many software companies are switching to annual subscriptions or "software assurance" (ex: Medisoft's or Lytec's Agreement") hidden in their End User License Agreement (EULA), which require you to pay high annual fees to keep your software running.  Lytec for example, charges $149 per month for theirs. In Data Doctor's book, that sounds like "rental" to me!  Unfortunately, this was one of the main factors causing Ability Clinical Technologies to discontinue our dealership of Medisoft products for nearly two decades!

Why have software companies started this rental practice for medical offices?  It's quite simple.  How often do you REALLY have to update your medical software?  When the National Provider Indicator (NPI) was established a few years back, it was the first time in many years that medical practices were required to upgrade their software to accommodate the new CMS 1500 08/05 form.  The CMS form had not been modified since December of 1990!  The most recent changes have had to do with ANSI 5010 changes and the upcoming ICD-10 codes. But after that, you may not NEED to upgrade your software for another TEN YEARS!

Software companies LOVED the surge of sales and did not want it to stop.  So...in order to guarantee that upgrade sales will continue, medical software companies are following the lead of anti-virus manufacturers.  By promoting this new trend as "software assurance", they lock you in to annual renewal fees.  What if funds are tight one year and you can't afford the upgrade (rental fee)?  Then watch your software STOP, locking you out of your patients' data!

"But what can I do?" you ask.  Consider purchasing software solutions that do NOT require annual subscriptions.  Seriously READ the EULA agreements  BEFORE you  install any software.  If you already are using a medical billing program, such as Medisoft or Lytec that now have subscription agreements in place, seek alternate programs that will allow you to import/convert your data.  By doing so, you will greatly reduce the downtime required to re-enter all your data.  Data conversion companies typically charge from $800 to $5000 to convert your data.  However, two of the products we carry, AltaPoint and TotalMD have data conversion utilities built in.  You can be up in running in a matter of hours (depending on how much data you have to convert).

One-time costs means you OWN your software.  Never pay RENTAL fees again!