January 2023 update: Hi everyone, I am writing with more information about EyeMD. The good news is that they finally took my concerns seriously and fixed my EHR. It now works just fine. It functions just as well as any other EHR that my friends use (I do not believe it is either inferior nor superior to other companies). And the leadership of EHR has apologized multiple times for the way they treated me, as detailed in my post below from June 2020. I believe they are sincere.
The EHR landscape has changed since I wrote the post in June 2020. I hear complaints from my email group about multiple other EHRs that my friends use, about functionality and lag times. Some other companies have nickeled and dimed their clients with rate increases. Unlike my friends, I have none of these complaints. Perhaps it’s partly because I get my employees to scribe for much of my notes. I’m glad I didn’t switch EHRs when this happened, because it’s a huge pain to switch, which multiple friends using other companies have went through due to being more upset than me. EyeMD well enough that I am now satisfied have no desire to switch EHRs.
It has come to my attention both from EyeMD and some of my friends that competing EHR companies are using this post to steer potential customers away from EyeMD. While I maintain that everything written in my post is truthful and accurate, it is not fair to consider this post in a vacuum.
Some incidents that friends have mentioned to me: one major EHR company had a huge data breach and a class action lawsuit; many of my friends who were its users left. Another company had a $19 million class action settlement for defrauding investors with rosy profit projections. And another company recently settled in 2022 with the Department of Justice for $45 million over fraud with stating their company met criteria for EHR federal incentives for their users, as well as kickbacks for steering customers to a pathology lab. Line seven of the government court complaint says “The flaws in the EHR not only rendered the system unreliable and unable to meet meaningful use standards, but the flaws also created risks to patient health and safety. Rather than spend the time and resources necessary to correct the flaws in its EHR software, (they) continuously de-prioritized high priority defects in favor of development of new products and new sources of revenue.” Another company settled for $145 million in 2020 with the Department of Justice for kickbacks regarding opioid prescriptions.
Would you trust any company that has been a subject of such a lawsuit? The lawsuit costs will probably be passed onto their customers. As far as I know, EyeMD has not had such lawsuits against them.
The purpose of the post below was to get them realize how unhappy I was and fix my EHR. That has been accomplished. EyeMD also has noted to me they are so confident that their products will work well and their customers will be happy with their service that unlike other EHR companies they don’t have a non- disparagement clause. The told me that if they have any customers as unhappy as me, they can add negative comments about them to my blog post. So far I haven’t heard anything.
I don’t get the warm fuzzies when I have to interact with their company (thankfully interactions have been minimal in the 1.5 years or so because it’s worked fine). They definitely aren’t on my Christmas card list; I still don’t really like them after they treated me the way they did. But I also don’t think it’s fair that other companies are using my post to disparage them when these very companies themselves also have skeletons in their closet. And no EyeMD didn’t pay me to write this, they simply appealed to my sense of fairness.
When you choose your EHR, you should read and consider my post and ask EyeMD how they have improved their customer service and software since the post was written in 2020, but you should look on google to see if there are complaints or lawsuits against other EHR companies you are considering, and whether their contracts have a non- disparagement policy, and take this into equal consideration. My hope is that this information will help you choose the EHR that best fits your needs, whether it be EyeMD or another company.
And here’s my original post: I have used EyeMD EHR since I opened my practice in 2014 and was extremely happy with it. In fact, I’ve recommended it to multiple people in our solo google group who were also very happy with it also. But unfortunately, things have changed. I have recently read multiple articles in magazines such as Ophthalmology Management touting its features and ease of use.
The purpose of this blog post is to present an alternative viewpoint. I would rather be doing something I enjoy than writing a negative review, and I don’t like to speak poorly of anyone, but I feel that any potential users of EyeMD, or even current users of EyeMD still on the 1.0 version that haven’t upgraded to the 2.0 version, should hear my story.
The troubles all began in September 2019. I am part of a ACO, so I could elect for them to do my MIPS reporting, which I thought would be easier and get me a higher score than reporting it myself through the AAO IRIS registry. ACOs are also eligible for gain share, and I felt there was a good chance that my ACO would achieve gain share making me eligible for $10,000.
The issue was that my ACO required the 2015 certified edition (EyeMD 2.0 version) rather than the 2014 certified version (EyeMD 1.0 version). Since the company had provided awesome customer service to me with an easy to use EHR for almost five years, I thought the upgrade would be no big deal, and the 2.0 version would be just as easy to use as the 1.0 version. I should’ve been suspicious when the product manager asked my ACO to push back the deadline, but naively I still trusted the company.
Before I upgraded, I spoke extensively with the VP of sales. He noted that my account was marked that I should be the LAST to upgrade because I have expressed in the past that I am intolerant of any bugs or delays. He told me that only a dozen or so clients had upgraded for me and based on his experience there could be a few minor glitches but didn’t expect anything that would interrupt my clinic or any major glitches. I reminded him again that I absolutely expected a EHR that would work properly, and he reiterated to me that it would (edited to add) likely be the case.
I was completely shocked when I was upgraded in early October. The EHR basically didn’t work. It froze when I was navigating from one tab to another such as exam findings to plan. I would have to shut down the EHR and restart it. At that time, the compatibility between my EHR and practice management system was lost for referring docs, and I had to manually go back and enter things for billing. The EHR would previously suggest codes such as 92134 for OCT or 92136 for IOL master, but now I had to manually enter them, all creating extra work. Very annoyingly, when I tried to free text the HPI by changing words or inserting sentences from a previous note, the cursor would jump around and I’d have to go back, delete it and retype it. Random error messages would pop up, I would have to exit the program, and wait for it to reload.
On top of this, when I tried to create notes to send to referring docs the 1.0 version was fast with one click. The 2.0 version generates notes intermittently, meaning I’d often have to go back and do extra clicks to make sure the note was generated. It was more awkward to find diagnoses to do fast plans as they are now located under different tabs, which requires more clicking.
When I first upgraded, resolving a cataract diagnosis didn’t automatically bring up a pseudophakia diagnosis, meaning more clicks. If I tried to add the modifier -79 to 66984, random modifiers were added and it got rid of laterality, meaning I would have to re-enter it in my PM system or the claim would get denied.
Also, I could no longer consistently scan in documents and new patient paperwork. Not having documents such as op reports, correspondence from referring doctors, and insurance company addresses not only makes billing and running your office more difficult, it could pose medicolegal risk to you if you forgot to scan it in later. They told me this was an IT issue.
I had more trouble entering the vision, refraction, wear and even APD/ CVF/IOP/ dilate patient. I found the extra clicks and counter-intuitively moving across the screen in the wrong order taking time to get used to. In my opinion, the 1.0 version flowed better.
I should’ve been doubly suspicious because MIPS required EHR users to use the 2015 certified edition for at least 90 days in 2019. Any potential clients of EyeMD should ask them why they didn’t upgrade ALL their clients before October 1, 2019 to get the 90 days with the 2015 cert vision to maximize their MIPS score. Based on my experiences with them, I personally am concerned the next time the government makes some requirement for the 2023 certified edition, that EyeMD will not be able to comply.
Any potential user should ask them how many software updates to the 2.0 version they’ve created to date. My suspicion is that it wasn’t a finished product when they deployed it to me. Whether or not they knew this at the time I was upgraded was debatable, my belief was they knew there were problems, but they continue to adamantly deny this. Any potential user of EyeMD should ask: “why was Dr. Chen told in October 2019 that the 2.0 version was ready when his ACO required it, but he was really a guinea pig beta tester against his will?”
Although they did make it very clear to me that i was in phase one deployment of 2.0 (added) I do know for a fact that they implied (edited from promised) to me that I would be given a working EHR. Instead, I have spent countless hours exchanging emails, phone calls and video conferences with them to iron out their bugs- all of this time at my expense of being at home or doing something I enjoy.
I was upgraded right before AAO, and they offered to train me at AAO. But the problem wasn’t just with the training- it was with the bugs in the system. I wrote to our google group that at that time, I was so stressed with the EHR because I was in the office until 8 PM every night futilely trying to enter my notes into their EHR, that I needed a mental health break from their product or I’d jump off the Golden Gate Bridge (AAO was in San Francisco that year). If you want your EHR to make you feel suicidal and depressed, then EyeMD would be a good fit for you.
Shortly after AAO, I had a video conference with the CEO of the company and VP of sales. The CEO told me “YOU were the one that wanted to upgrade.” Umm, I was upgrading to meet my ACO and government requirements. This is akin to blaming the passengers of the Titanic for choosing a ship that sank, or the passengers of Malaysia Air 370 for choosing a flight that disappeared.
Potential users of EyeMD should ask the company if they create working products to meet ACO and government mandates in a timely fashion, and if they blame their customers when in fact they were at fault being unprepared for the 2015 certified version and for releasing a product with the errors described above.
I also told him that I would write a blog post about the troubles with the EHR and link the videos of the bugs to it. He told me that he would sue me as the license to me is copyright protected. Give me a break- do you think that any other EHR company wants to copy their bugs and lags?
Hint to my readers: if someone wants to hide something, it’s usually worse than what it really is. If the CEO of the company didn’t say this to me, then I’ll delete this paragraph and insert all of my videos of the bugs.
In late October, I emailed my google group that the 2.0 version was still full of bugs but finally somewhat usable, so since they had given me such good customer service before, I believed that they would make everything good real soon. How wrong I was. Ho Sun formerly used EyeMD, but he felt it was getting outdated with too many clicks so he switched. Like an idiot, I didn’t follow his lead.
Another EyeMD user switched during coronavirus. There is no doubt that it is very difficult and time consuming to switch EHR systems, for example you need to scan everything into the new system and enter all the referring docs into the new PM system, and create new fast plans. Two lessons to anyone starting up: don’t pick a cheap EHR and expect to switch to something better once you get busier, as you won’t have the time; and an excellent EHR today might give you problems in seven years.
One very frustrating things about EyeMD are they are on the east coast. They have been very difficult to reach at 4 PM Arizona time. It is at the point where I will now phone their “emergency” 24/7 line and insist someone talk with me at a time that is convenient for me.
Given all the trouble I’ve had, the least I feel they can do is hold video conferences at times that are convenient for me rather than during my clinic when I am seeing patients. For anyone on the west coast or Mountain time that is a potential customer of EyeMD, I would ask them “why is it so difficult for Dr. Chen to set up phone conferences at 4 PM Arizona time after he is done seeing patients?”
Another frustrating thing is their mobile app. Some of my friends have described it as “clunky” and you are required to keep a port open which could increase the risk of intrusion to your server. My IT actually closed the port.
So what made me finally decide to post on this blog about my experiences with EyeMD? At first I was going to give them a chance to iron out all my issues. Fast forward EIGHT months later and there are still issues! The program can intermittently still be slow moving from tab to tab and when I sign off on notes. The notes to referring doctors still intermittently can’t be generated. The last straw is that I STILL can’t consistently scan in information. They kept on telling me it was an IT issue. I finally got them on a phone call with my IT at the same time, and after a half hour they concluded it was their issue. There is no way they can blame me for not making them aware of the issue- I have been on their case about this since last October about not just this issue but also the slowness.
Their response was that I was the only client having this problem, and that most of their other clients were extremely happy with their 2.0 version. I asked them how much time they spent fixing my issues and they told me “we have many clients to serve.” I asked them to at least tell me how much time they spent fixing my issues and have received vague answers like “wait until the next update”. Given that it has been eight months, I wonder if they are working on, or prioritizing my issues.
Any prospective client of EyeMD should ask them, “Dr. Chen complained about issues and bugs in October 2019, yet some of them haven’t been fixed in June 2020. Is this because you blew him off and didn’t take his concerns seriously, or because your company lacks the resources to fix them? What is currently being done to help him?”
They also told me that they had visited other practices and mine was next before COVID hit. I hope that any prospective client of EyeMD asks “if there were problems unique to Dr. Chen’s practice, why did you visit other practices first rather than his? And if other practices didn’t experience any problems, then why did you need to visit them?”
If I am the ONLY client with these issues, and they are unwilling or unable to fix them in eight months, then really they should pay for me to switch to a different EHR company.
All of the above has been a serious stress to me, reduced my employees’ productivity, and given me grey hairs and wrinkles. This company has created so much stress for me that I actually have trouble sleeping at night.
Ironically, when you go to the company’s website, they tout how “three reputable and impartial user surveys corroborate unrivaled user satisfaction”. For me, this was true for the 1.0 version. EyeMD claims that it’s equally true for their 2.0 version. Based on my experiences, I find this claim difficult to believe.
Finally, let’s take a look at EyeMD’s core values:
Look at #1 the golden rule- treat others as you would want to be treated. I’ll let the readers of this blog decide if the way a EHR client should be treated is to not remove annoying inefficient bugs EIGHT MONTHS after upgrading. Or telling clients that problems are unique to their practice yet visiting other clients first.
How about rule #3- prioritize the ophthalmologist. Perhaps they could do this by arranging for conferences during normal work hours Arizona time without complaining, instead of forcing me to work around their schedule.
And rule #4- under promise and over deliver. Again I’ll let my readers judge whether it’s appropriate to tell me I’d have a working EHR to meet my ACO and government requirements, when they didn’t deliver one to me, and I was in the office until 8 PM doing notes every night, totally stressed out.
Their very own website states “anyone… including management… who is not in full agreement with the company’s core values simply does not belong here and should seek employment elsewhere.” I am wondering if this applies to the CEO of the company and the VP of sales.
This is NOT meant to be a personal attack, as I would rather stop by their booth at AAO and congratulate them on the great job they’re doing and tell them how I’m recommending them to everyone, which is exactly what I did from 2014- September 2019.
The biggest mistake I’ve made in seven years of solo practice was trusting EyeMD. Their actions since October 2019 have caused me to lose trust in them. Their company totally let me down.
If there are potential users of EyeMD, or current users of Eye MD on the 1.0 version, I hope you call this to their attention so it is fixed before you use the 2.0 version. If you are a happy user of 2.0 and wondering what this is all about, please ask EyeMD management for their permission for me to share my videos of all the bugs with you, and to ask their company to fix them.
Important note: please read the comments section below to see how the CEO of the company responded- by threatening to sue me, and blaming me for their problems. Get out your popcorn folks! 🍿🍿🍿
This shows what they really stand for and who they truly are. I could take down this blog post and just leave their comments, and it would tell you everything you need to know about EyeMD.
This is great information as I am looking for an EHR to start out with. The rhetoric about the values and ethics of our forefathers also bothers me after hearing your story. Any other recommendations?
Thanks for writing this review. Although I’m not in the market for a new EMR at the moment, I’ll be avoiding this company like the plague if I ever need to switch. We need more people calling out these type of clowns.
While it is unfortunate that Dr. Chen has decided to post this unfair/unbalanced review of EyeMD EMR 2.0, it is important to note that Dr. Chen willingly participated in the Stage 1 – Early Adopter Release of EyeMD EMR 2.0. The issues Dr. Chen reported would not be experienced by a user of a General Release version of our system as evident by his admitted prior positive experience with version 1.0. All users, including Dr. Chen, were fully advised of the risks and responsibilities of being an early adopter, evident by the following verbiage all users received via e-mail and again during the signup process for the early adopter program:
Stage 1 – Early Adopter Release: During this stage, clients who have indicated to us that they would like to participate in the Early Adopter Stage will receive the update first. This group should only consist of clients who would like to be among the first to receive these features but are tolerant of bugs that were undetected during our exhaustive beta testing. Clients in this stage of the rollout should expect bugs/oversights and will work directly with our engineers to quickly resolve issues. During this stage, only a limited number of practices will be approved for release.
As Dr. Chen admitted, he is intolerant of issues and was not an ideal candidate for Stage 1 release. As a result, we repeatedly advised him to not upgrade until Stage 3 – Stable release. Dr. Chen decided to not heed our recommendations and proceeded anyway due to requirements set by an ACO he desired to participate in and his desire to maximize his eligibility for government incentives (which we advised against as EyeMD EMR 2.0 was not required in order to achieve maximum incentives). The only representation we made to Dr. Chen was that other EyeMD EMR 2.0 users were 100% live and were only experiencing minor issues. Unfortunately, Dr. Chen’s experience later proved to not be consistent with the experience of other users. Most of the issues experienced by Dr. Chen were isolated to only his practice and came as a result of circumstances that were unique to his hardware, configuration, and/or unconventional use of the system. Most have already been resolved. Although we admit it has taken longer for us to reach a general release than we originally anticipated, the number of bugs nor the amount of time it has taken us to address them is not unusual for a new product of this nature. This should not be interpreted to be reflective of our ability to deliver. It is not uncommon for a complicated software product like ours to take several years to reach a general release.
Although there are still some kinks to work out and some outlier issues remaining, EyeMD EMR 2.0 users by vast majority are either extremely pleased with EyeMD EMR 2.0, or are willing to deal with any remaining minor issues they see incredible progress being made and are confident that the general release of our system will easily outpace any other solution on the market. The technology we are releasing will forever change the Ophthalmology EMR market. By vast majority, 2.0 users report to us that they are very glad they upgraded and are not looking back. Nowhere in this article are the extraordinary lengths we went to try to please Dr. Chen, nor was there any mention of the fact that many of the issues he pointed out were quickly resolved. He did not even mention any of the many new features of 2.0 that he enjoys. It is unbalanced, unfair, and does not represent typical experiences of EyeMD EMR 2.0 users. We hope other EyeMD EMR 2.0 users are provided an opportunity to share their perspectives, particularly when they do not align with the narrative that Dr. Chen is attempting to convey.
In response to his claim that we threatened to sue him or dissuade him from publicly sharing his experience, this representation is completely false. During the course of our interactions with Dr. Chen, he continually threatened us with posting “his experience” on his blog in order to coerce us into prioritizing his issues over higher priority issues experienced by a higher number of other users. We must prioritize issues experienced by greater numbers of users. All we asked was that his blog post was fair and balanced and that it did not include screenshots or videos as that information is considered intellectual property that is protected by our license agreement. We never threatened to sue him, but we did advise him of his contractual obligations to keep our intellectual property confidential, particularly at a time when our competitors are chomping at the bit to see what we are about to release.
We will continue to work hard to address Dr. Chen’s concerns and are nearing a general release, but would advise readers to not base their final EMR decision solely on the perspective of a single disgruntled early adopter who made a conscious decision to implement a pre-release version of the software, is intolerant issues that should have been expected, and was unwilling to accept the risks and responsibilities associated with being an early adopter. We maintain his experience was isolated and would never be shared by a user of a General Release version of our software.
Abdiel Marin, CEO
EyeMD EMR Healthcare Systems, Inc.
We were going to publish this reply (and encourage EyeMD to also reply to the other questions raised in the original post), but when the CEO of the company issues threats, it says something about the way the company is run. Every reader of this blog should read the email he sent me this afternoon and decide if this is the type of company you want to work with. Their response when things go wrong is telling.
Here’s the email with my response below:
“Dear Dr Chen,
I’ve been made aware of your blog post, and find the representations made to be unbalanced, incomplete, unfair, and in a several cases, inaccurate. Your blog post suggests that we did not prepare you for the possibility of encountering issues, and that you were “shocked” to find that the “EHR basically didn’t work”. These characterizations are misleading and do not properly represent what occurred. They are false and intended to disparage us. We have mountains of evidence including emails and recorded calls to prove that you were properly warned of the possibility of issues, and that we advised you on multiple occasions to hold off on updating. One example is below. You may recall this was the very first communication Gus had with you regarding the update.
I am a believer in transparency and do not have an issue with making your experience known, provided the representations are fair, complete, and accurate. Your post does not meet these qualifications. It did not clearly convey that you were made well aware of the risks and decided to proceed anyway in order to meet the requirements of your ACO and be eligible for a 10K incentive. In fact, it suggests the opposite in that we misrepresented the state of the system to you, which makes no sense as we had no vested interest in upgrading you. It goes on to suggest that the issues are still present as you do not provide any details on the effort we made to resolve many of the issues, or the detail current state of the system. We intend to aggressively defend our right to not be disparaged in this manner with incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading information.
We have a 2 options to prevent an escalation.
#1 You can take down this post.
or
#2 You can approve our response comment and allow other EyeMD EMR 2.0 users to share their experience.
If you do not immediately comply with either of these demands, we will immediately forward this issue to our counsel and aggressively defend the reputation we have worked hard to earn.
image001.png
Image missing, but copy of email sent to me 9/11/19 from VP of sales stating: …”if we update you in phase one you understand that there is a possibility that you might encounter some bugs and minor issues. We do feel that by this point we have captured the bulk of the issues that go with such a huge undertaking but we cannot guarantee that nothing else will come up. .. I want to make sure the right expectations are set.”
EyeMD EMR Healthcare Systems, Inc.
Abdiel Marin | CEO
27300 Riverview Center Blvd Suite 100
Bonita Springs, FL 34134
Toll Free: (877) 2 EYE EMR
Local: (239) 829-5959
Fax: (239) 949-5959
http://www.eyemdemr.com
FacebookLinkedInTwitterGoogle+Youtube”
First of all, I’ll let my readers judge if the bugs I describe are minor and something that wouldn’t disturb the average ophthalmologist too much.
Secondly, if Abidel is truly into transparency, then he should show potential clients the videos of my first two training sessions with EyeMD on 2.0 where I encountered serious problems. Again, I’ll let the readers of this blog judge whether they would be disturbed by this.
Thirdly, if he truly is into transparency, he can feel free to send me the dates each of the bugs were fixed, when the updates were deployed, and how long this was after upgrading. While many of the worst problems were fixed in a few weeks, many annoying bugs persisted for months.
Finally, every potential client of EyeMD should be aware that this is the way they will be berated by the CEO if they’re that one in 800 client where something goes wrong.
Dear CEO,
You realize this response just made things worse for you right? Seriously, go spend some money and hire a good PR person.
So the CEO of EyeMD sent me the following email:
“I find it quite hypocritical of you to continuously accuse us of misrepresenting ourselves, yet here you are crafting narratives to fit your agenda and silencing the voices of our users that are trying to defend us. You are the very monster you accuse us of being. You will not find the gratification you seek in attempting to tarnish our reputation. When this is all set and done, you will find yourself sitting the middle of a pile of regrets, and our success will continue because we earned it and we have built up more credibility than you have the ability to singlehandedly destroy. Our other users, yes even 2.0 users, who love us will rise to the occasion and defend us, and this moment in time where you think you are controlling the narrative will pass.
I urge you to lay your arms down, and work with us to get past these issues and get you where you need to be. I wish there was something we could have done to prevent the experience you had, but all I can do is continue to try our best to do things better in the future. Nothing good will come from us attacking each other. If you think the grass is greener with our competitors, you have something coming. We have plenty of users who switched from other systems to us and have told us their horror stories, but they cannot share them as they have gag orders and cannot tell anyone of their experience. You are shooting at the good guys, and will soon find yourself locked in the prison of the enemy.
Let’s reconcile and move forward, right our wrongs, apologize to each other publicly, and post the experiences of our other users. All this war will accomplish is create a pile of casualties on both sides, and leave you with the memory that you shot your old friend.”
So in our wordpress blog spam folder I found the following review from a Stephen E Smith. I’ll be happy to publish it. Any reader of this blog can decide for themselves based on Dr. Smith’s tone and content of his post, what type of a person he is and what he stands for. For potential EyeMD users: they might refer you to Dr. Smith as a reference, so if you speak on the phone with him, keep in mind he wrote the following:
“I thought after reading this extensive blog from Dr Chen I thought important to express a slightly different point of view. First of all I have no financial interest in EyeMD EMR and am only a consumer of their product and services. I have been a user since the company began and have upgraded to EyeMD EMR 2.0 with only very nominal issues.
I found it interesting that Dr Chen’s only goal in upgrading to 2.0 was the possibility that his ACO required it to get him a chance at $10,000. EyeMD EMR put out several emails and notices to its clients in August and September 2019 that upgrading was not necessary, and not required to fill all governmental regulation. They explicitly described how all MIPS could be achieved without upgrading. It appears to me from this Blog that Dr Chen was not ready to upgrade on the first wave of 2.0 users but possibly was coerced by his ACO and the idea of $10,000 even against the recommendations of the company.
I started with 2.0 in September 2019. I was told beforehand that this was the first wave and there might be some issues. I never missed one day of clinic and never stayed past 5:00 EST. We changed over on our half day monthly meeting when no patients were scheduled and that afternoon we saw 35 patients with no delays.
There have been bugs as with any new versions of software. The developers can only predict so many re-world scenarios and we all use the program slightly different. But EyeMD EMR has developed a really good method to screenshot the error and send it to them with different priority level request. I understand Dr Chen in saying that dealing with time zones is a pain and many of my vendors are in California and I am stuck all morning not being able to reach them to solve a problem. I do not expect the AAO to employee someone to be there to answer the phone at my convenience. If that’s the problem then buy from a vendor that is in your time zone. That seems to me to be an idiotic complaint. Also look at paragraph 4 in the blog he admits that he was told by the VP of sales that he should be the LAST to upgrade.
This blog sounds to me like the experience of perfectionist wanting an extremely complicated product to perfect right out of the development room. Someone who was more interested in getting an extra $10,000 from his ACO than someone wanting his solo ophthalmology practice to succeed. I would take this with a grain of salt and judge for yourself. My experience with EyeMD EMR 2.0 has been amazing and I am confident they will be the EMR of the future.
Stephen E Smith, MD”
There! Now is everyone convinced that there is no other choice besides EyeMD?
I will respond to Dr. Smith only by saying my experience has been very different. I COMPLETELY agree with Dr. Smith that I am an idiot for trusting EyeMD to provide me with service during normal Arizona business hours.
To prove I’m not trying to hide anything, here is another positive article about EyeMD in which Dr. Smith is quoted:
https://www.ophthalmologymanagement.com/issues/2020/april-2020/spotlight-on-technology-amp;-technique
Interestingly, before I wrote my original blog post, I read the above article and contacted EyeMD for more information about their fog alternative. They never got back to me. I also disagree with Dr. Tran that 2.0 has less clicks, as I personally have experienced more. Mr. Marin has noted that “he did not even mention the new features of 2.0 which he enjoys.” I personally am not aware of any new features that are advantageous over the 1.0 version. If EyeMD wants to respond with these features, I am happy to publish it in these comments.
I agree with Abdiel that we should lay our arms down, reconcile, and move forward. The easiest way to do this is for them to listen to my concerns and address them. For example, I had a phone conference with the VP of sales and Abdiel a few weeks ago where they flat out told me that my IT was the problem. They should’ve taken the initiative of troubleshooting this with my IT. When I arranged for the conference, after 15 minutes it was evident the problem was theirs. They’ve told me it isn’t their problem, or just blew off my complaints, for months. I am not a IT guy or a coder/ programmer. That’s why I pay them fees to do this. They have failed me multiple times.
I’ve also been complaining of the cursor randomly jumping around during free texting in the HPI for months. Yesterday I got a email from the VP of sales asking me where the problem was, in the plans or the HPI. This just goes to show that they haven’t listened to me, because I’ve told him it was in the HPI at least ten times.
If EyeMD has a website with testimonials from happy users, I’ll be happy to post a link to it. Send it to me. The only thing I ask, is for the sake of transparency, that I be allowed to post my review as a counterpoint.
I will be happy to post any further comments from EyeMD. If they think that “I did not heed our recommendations and proceeded anyway” (with the update), send proof to me and I’ll post it/fix it. If they further disagree with anything written in my blog post, I am happy to present their point of view.
It’s entirely up to EyeMD to decide how to proceed. If they wish to continue to berate me, blame me for updating when their software had bugs (anticipated or unanticipated), or justify blowing me off when I have issues with the EHR that prevent me from running my office, that is their choice. I’ll be more than happy to publish their rants about me so all their prospective users can see what this company is really about and who they really are despite their published core values. They don’t have to threaten me with a lawsuit to do this. I’m happy to show the world what they stand for.
If they wish to reread their core values, and perhaps examine the way their organization is run and analyze what can be done to make disgruntled customers happy, and make changes based on the feedback I’ve provided, I’ll be happy to put this in the comments as well.
Recently, I was looking to switch to an alternative of my current EHR system. I was considering EyeMD an option… oh geez… not anymore. I can’t believe the top brass of this company is writing personal insults and threats to its users and clients? Thank you Dr Chen for telling your story.
Out of curiosity, do you still use EyeMD or did you switch. Where they able to upgrade their system in 2.0 to satisfy you eventually. Thanks
I am still using EyeMD. Amazingly enough, once I wrote my review above they suddenly became very interested in solving my problems and no longer outwardly blame me for their lack of preparation and customer service failings. I should’ve complained months ago instead of giving them a chance to fix it. It’s a shame when companies need to be publicly called out rather than trying to keep their users happy.
I just wrote them again about the cursor going in circles when I enter notes for between visit phone calls. Not a deal breaker but annoying.
Having said that the software itself is good enough now that I won’t recommend against using it. Once I complained, they did put all of their efforts into fixing it and trying to make me happy. I sincerely appreciate their efforts to serve me, but I still maintain this should’ve been done months ago.
They also told me they have a new practice management system partnership which their clients like and one person in our google group is currently using and agrees.
However my personal experience is that the 2.0 version is slightly inferior to the 1.0 version. For a current 1.0 user, I wouldn’t upgrade unless I had to for my ACO.
Others may disagree with me. I still haven’t been made aware of the advantages of the 2.0 version. If EyeMD wants to hold a conference with me go explain them I’d be happy to listen. I still think it takes longer to enter patient work up and clinical documentation information into the system. If you have techs who do this may not be as big of an issue. Perhaps they have not taken the time to go over this me, which again is not my fault.
My personal belief is that they knew they were unprepared but upgraded me to 2.0 anyway, without any respect for my time and trouble. I was frustrated for months on end and they blamed me for this.
There’s nothing about their software now that would make me recommend against them for a new user. But read the above post and their responses and if anything went wrong with your account, new or upgrade, would you want to be treated this way and have the CEO berate you? Mr. Marin’s responses tell you more about whether or not you would want to do business with this company more than anything I say, which is a shame because their software has become decent again.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: trusting this company was the biggest mistake I’ve made in solo practice.
Thank you for your response, your point is well taken.
I’d like to provide a synopsis of my experience with EyeMD 2.0, which I updated to last month (September 2021).
First of all, I have no financial arrangement with EyeMD. I have been a user since 2014. I was very happy with version 1.0. At the AAO meeting in 2019, I previewed version 2.0 at the EyeMD booth. There were some things that I liked, but there were some things that I really did not like. In fact, I disliked some of these things so much that I told myself that I wouldn’t update until absolutely necessary. I told the EyeMD reps my reservations about the new version. I think I am like Dr. Chen in terms of I want things to work perfectly, and I don’t necessarily like change.
Fast forward 2 years later, and I finally had to update to 2.0 (we needed to do this by 10/1/2021 for MIPS reporting). I spent quite of bit of time previewing the system online (they have a “Sandbox” feature for this). I also made sure my staff members were familiar with the 2.0 changes, and they completed the online training as well.
Now 1 month later, I can say that I like version 2.0. It was a bit rough for about a week–of course some things have moved, and I needed to reprogram my brain to find everything. This felt like updating Windows OS from Windows XP to Windows 7, or Windows 7 to Windows 10. As a result of the changes, I was probably a little slower for a week. However, now I think I am more efficient overall (I do not use a scribe). I am definitely more efficient with the coding/billing part. Entering exam findings from new is about the same, and changing exam findings on follow-ups is a little quicker. Copying forward Imp/Plan ends up requiring a little more work when carrying forward from a patient last seen in 1.0, but when copying forward from a 2.0 visit it is more efficient.
The EyeMD training staff has been excellent to work with. They helped me before updating, and they have helped me a couple of times after updating when I wanted to go over a few things. I feel badly for Dr. Chen and others who updated early and went through all of those growing pains. However, I thank he and others for providing feedback to EyeMD, and helping them improve on the early deficiencies. And make no mistake, there are still some things that I think they need to improve (and I have been told that they are working on these issues), especially the refraction screen. EyeMD does have a user forum where people can post bugs they’ve encountered, as well as post suggestions for future improvements, and EyeMD incorporates at least some of these in future updates.
I think no EMR system is perfect, but I am very happy with EyeMD as company, and overall I am happy with version 2.0.
Good comments. Two of my friends recently upgraded. Their feedback was similar to yours. One of them had a smooth upgrade but didn’t really think 2.0 was that much better than the first version so told others not to hurry to upgrade. My second friend immediately liked 2.0 more than the first version although he did state there were a few minor quirks/ things to get used to, just like you did.
The ironic thing is that EyeMD seems to be telling their users they need to upgrade to satisfy MIPS. But if you’re a small practice you can take the PI/ EHR exemption for 2021. They kept on telling me that I should’ve done this for 2019 instead of upgrading, but my ACO required me to upgrade.
The customer service I’ve gotten lately has been fine. Had I waited like you did until fall 2021 (if not required by ACO) I’d still probably be really happy with EyeMD.
But the way they treated me when the software was total crap and didn’t work/ constantly froze was totally inexcusable. It is true that users of some other EHR companies have went through the same things that I have- you are correct that no system is perfect.
While i personally still prefer the first version, I’m no longer gonna recommend against upgrading to 2.0.
Look at the comments by Mr. Marin. Is this the way you’d want to be treated if something went wrong? Is this consistent with their core values on their website? They tell me he wasn’t thinking straight when he wrote the comments on our blog- but they threatened to sue me unless I put them up. Their comments are indicative and reflective of their attitude towards me over several months- not just a one time “I got upset and wrote the wrong thing”.
They were nice enough to do a site visit to my office July 2021. I still maintain they should’ve been there December 2019 at the latest. This would’ve went a long way in proving that they actually care about their customers and were sincere in trying to fix this. Instead they told me that I was the only one having these problems and blew me off.
I’ve said it before and will say it again: the software works fine, if not great, now. I’m happy with it, especially since my employees help out a lot with scribing.
But the worst mistake I’ve made in running my practice was to trust this company. It cost me hours of lost productivity, time and frustration. Anyone considering using or switching to this EHR should keep my words in mind.