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You can reach me at joel@cliniko.com if that helps.

Very interesting points of view from other software companies on selling practice management systems with on-going support costs compared to the newer Software as a Service model that ultimately ends in larger costs over longer periods of time for the user due to many factors.

Of course there are more benefits to SaaS which you pay for such as lower in-house IT costs for the practice, less hassle with data from a backup/disaster recovery point of view and more besides but it really is horses for courses as not everyone has failing or bad IT equipment in their practice. In fact I am happy to say that most of the people I speak to have a very good working IT system that wants for nothing and so the SaaS model isn’t for them.

The point is that neither pricing model is “broken” as there can never be one that reigns supreme and suits everyone’s needs.

However I have to agree with Björn’s comment on the 14th August as being from a software provider myself (obviously), I am not here to suggest anything such as which software other forum members should look into.

Instead we should simply be here to offer as much general advice where possible as my own experience in advising, supporting and training practice owners and employees may come in useful to other forum members from time to time whilst I can keep myself up to date with what everyone is asking for from a practice management system by browsing the various threads.

Im looking into new practice management software & am intrigued by Cloud based software (such as Cliniko) as I have multiple locations. Any comments particularly from those who maybe use Cliniko or an alternative Cloud based system? I have sent an email before to Cliniko as (maybe I'm the only one) I think it would be very useful to have PMS that could track Medicare patient visits & maybe give reminders on things like when letters are due, when referrals expire etc.

Hey Zac,

Cliniko looks like a great product. You might also want to take a look at writeupp.com

In the interests of disclosure I'm the CEO of WriteUpp but this should give you another cloud-based option to keep Cliniko on their toes!

Bob

Thanks Bob. I think Cloud based systems really appeal to me but I think at the moment (in Australia at least) they have some limitations as I believe they don't have access to Medicare & Hicaps. Using a PMS that has these connections, it will be very hard & time consuming (due to having to go back to manual inputting of information) for my staff & I to swap over. At the moment it would be a step backward. But I can see products like Cliniko have a real niche market that will grow.

Hi Zac,

We (Cliniko) have begun working on Medicare integration. It's quite difficult for cloud-based apps due to the "older" technology Medicare uses, but it's doable and we will get there. It's likely a few months away though.

As for HICAPS, they don't offer integration with web-based apps (nor does it work on Mac), I am not sure yet if it's something we can work around, we haven't investigated it yet. Most of our Aussie customers use HICAPS with Cliniko though and it's not something that we hear is a problem.

Cheers,

Joel

We (Cliniko) are always on our toes :)

I checked out your website, nice stuff! Great to see other companies in this industry taking a simple and customer focused approach.

Obviously I hope people choose Cliniko, but if not, looks like yours is a solid system.

Joel

Joel regards Hicaps we do the processing through our PMS & everything is automatically done through the Hicaps terminal without us inputting any info other than swiping the card - it's all a matter of time/efficiency. Medicare is an even bigger issue because again with our PMS it is all automatic with Medicare. To manually input a patients info, Medicare number, GP details is quite time consuming. Seeing 20-30 patients a day means anything that saves time is extremely important.

I can understand how Medicare is a showstopper, those that do a lot of transactions through it certainly need the integration.

HICAPS however... I think still judge the system on a whole. Let's say you lose 5 seconds for doing the HICAPS manually, but because Cliniko is awesome, every patient processing is 30 seconds faster, well you are still in front. Now I obviously have no idea how we compare in speed, I just think that HICAPS may not be the most critical thing.

I don't say this just for Cliniko of course, but for any system. They all have their pros/cons but a feature list doesn't really tell you how quick it will be. There is a lot of variation on that side.

It's maybe not critical but it forms a package of functions that makes a busy practice function as smoothly as possible - & i think when PMS are standardly providing that function, staff (mine at least) would find it hard to go to a Cloud alternative. The less double entry, the less errors are made & the less time taken to process a patient. I am not denigrating Cloud systems (I really like the basic premise) I just think maybe at the moment the Medicare/Hicaps issues are something that I hope maybe somehow can be addressed in the future - I would then seriously look at them.

What specifically makes Cliniko awesome?

Without doing a full sales pitch here, I think our main competitive advantages are:
- Great support (we stay accountable by showing live stats of how our customers rate our support here http://support.cliniko.com).
- Great reliability (again we like to be accountable and publish our uptime live http://status.cliniko.com/634575).
- Our software is fast and really easy to use. You can put a new receptionist in front of Cliniko with no training and they will just work it out (we know people have done this).
- We work hard every day for our customers. We prioritise our existing customers needs over sales (we have no sales people in our business, we hire developers and support staff only).

A few days ago I sent out our monthly newsletter, I asked in the newsletter if any of our customers would mind sending a testimonial through, I want to update our website with some new ones. This is one of the testimonials I received:

"Hi,

Just wanted to provide you with a testimonial so here it is...

Cliniko has absolutely improved the efficiency of my business. Being a new business owner I needed a lot of help in the beginning - the team at Cliniko have completely gone above and beyond the call of duty to help me out! Nothing is ever too hard or too much of a stretch. Cliniko really listens to what its customers want and need.

I often read through the "suggestions page" and agree with a lot of them - then I'll sign onto Cliniko et voila! The suggestion has been taken on board and incorporated into the latest upgrade to Cliniko.

I'd had an extremely poor experience with another (much larger) company which prompted me to switch over. I will never leave! The pricing is fair and doesn't penalise you for growing your business! Above all, Cliniko is an honest and transparent company - finally, what we need in the market!
Thanks guys! I can almost guarantee anyone who has dealt with you is satisfied.

Kind regards

Heidi Stacevicius
BHSc Podiatry
Director, FootSense Podiatry NZ Ltd"

That is what we work hard for, our measure of success is customer happiness.

Hi all
I couldn’t agree more with Zac. HICAPS, including EFT integration and Medicare claiming are a basic but yet essential parts of a modern, full featured, PMS package.

I would be horrified to go back to the days of manually entering multiple item codes and patients details to make a private health fund claim or the multiple, is it still 17?, steps to enter a Medicare claim. Let alone the balancing problems at the end of a busy day due to the double entry of all those amounts. It’s a shame that Web based products cant do these basic functions.

If you have your heart set on a web based product with the remote access and auto backup functions it can offer, then seriously look at using a remote hosted virtual server within Australia. There are many companies that offer this at a reasonable cost and you end up with the same benefits of a cloud based product but with a full suite of features that you need to run a modern practice that cares about their reception staff’s mental health!

Cheers
Stuart

People using Clinico,
Do you ever have to wait a long time for your notes etc to load due to it being stored on the net?
Kate :)

Hi Kate,

If you are interested, you can also ask questions of our users on our facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/cliniko.

Generally though if your internet is a reasonable speed then Cliniko should be really quick.

Cheers,

Joel
Cliniko