Fair question. I'm tilted towards the technology-enthusiastic-exuberant-willing to take risk--sort of approach to life and it's potential opportunity set. So... having stated that disclaimer. I'm in the price discovery phase, meeting with contractors, and getting quotes for different build out parameters. There's a wide range of pricing and ... as far as I can tell... differential ability to deliver, particularly with AI solutions, at the different price points. Health Cloud as a base layer can be negotiated down from list price to the 150-225 range per month and I guess in my case the cost of a pro account for zoom. At least from my information gathering. That plus the maintenance IT costs for wrangling salesforce updates to your complex integration plans, which I'm not entirely certain of just yet, but appears to be not too bad. That's my understanding of the maintenance costs. Then you have to plan a build out of a tech architecture and what you need it to accomplish. In my case: Zoom -->AI integration-->Data storage for future data mining, with automated summary into a a custom EMR. I am making a transition from 1099 work for a clinic to my own business and will need full service end-to-end automated insurance billing either ASAP or in the next phase of my business plan, but my tech stack will need that functionality from go. Having the CRM in the base layer of the tech stack allows for automation of dx specific path dependencies for psychometrics and patient education materials etc, which require integration with a knowledge data base and a content management system. I plan on creating a content creation pipeline with automations for clinical work but also for entrepreneurial content and men's mental health in the form of a podcast. But building out a technology first integrated platform with make the syndication steps frictionless and further data and algorithm management systems can come later. In other words you pay up large for limitless growth potential and next phase build out projects but you're only limited by your own imagination of what you could do. I also need this system to integrate for a planned website offering non-insurance group therapies and need the booking and payment and intake process to be fully automated and integrated.
That's my range of use cases. For the first phase--moving the data of all my current patients into the new new system with all the functionality of any of these EMR's above, but infinitely customizable to my liking, and to have the AI-zoom integration and insurance billing apparatus, all fully automated, I'm looking at 15K. Or thereabouts. But I haven't gotten a final quote from the contractor I want to work with who will lay out an itemized project delivery list for X total price. I'll let you know.
The other advantage to this kind of approach is that you have infinite scalability from go. I don't have aspirations to be an employer, but if I meet kindred spirits in men's group therapy, circles who want to work with me, It would be a snap to admin access to my system and transparently bill out for their services minus some admin fee for the technology maintenance.
TLDR: $2-300/month maintenance costs, 15k and up to pursue all your technology dreams for how you want your practice built around you. Expensive. But I'm putting a value for money assessment on it. I don't think traditional EMR's offer the same value as a custom solution. This is where we live out our careers every day. I'm ok with making it my own creative experience and paying for that.
