“We're going to pursue all of our options,” which includes legal action, Malik said in an interview.
An Allscripts spokeswoman said in an e-mail that the company “does not as a matter of policy, speak publicly to specific terms of contractual relationships with its vendors.” She added that Allscripts does provide customers with its own patient portal called FollowMyHealth.
The breakup comes at a sensitive time for both vendors and even more so for office-based physicians relying on their software. Physicians and other medical professionals must achieve 90 consecutive days of federally defined “meaningful use” of EHRs during 2014 to qualify for incentive payments and avoid Medicare penalties. That includes using the technology to communicate with patients.
Medfusion, which has its headquarters in Cary, N.C., has a Web page of information for its Allscripts customers, including links to the news release, a page of frequently asked questions, an invitation to three “virtual town hall” meetings and a sign-up page to continue service.
Malik said the company is cognizant of the timing problem for meeting Stage 2 meaningful-use criteria. “Today, what we're focusing on is minimizing disruption,” Malic said. “With the termination, they're going to be unable to provide our solution to their customers, but we can,” Malic said. “We're going to be offering them free service for the month of May. We think that most of them will come with us for the same or less than they're currently paying, and get more.”
After May, Medfusion will offer practices that stick with it “a very basic package” for $99 per provider per month on a month-to-month basis. It will also offer discounts for practice size and longer-term contracts.
Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn
