"Free" EMR system comes with fee for support services

Practice Fusion changes its Web site to reflect those charges in its offering to physicians.

By Pamela Lewis Dolan, AMNews staff. Dec. 10, 2007.

Practice Fusion is acknowledging on its Web site that its free electronic medical record system is not completely without cost.

Gail Romano, the company's vice president of marketing, said that in order to be "completely aboveboard" the company added the sentence: "There is only a nominal support fee for practitioners."

That sentence appears under a bullet point with the word "free" in bold letters, explaining that the licensing and hosting is free of charge. While not listed on the Web site, the support cost is $50 per physician, per month, Romano said.

The change was made after a complaint by one physician who sat through a Practice Fusion product demonstration.

That physician, who declined to be identified for this article, wrote a letter to Romano to dispute the company's use of the word "free" in its marketing materials when it also listed the $50 per physician, per month support charge.

Romano confirmed the $50 support fee, but defended the company's use of "free" because the hosting and software licensing are offered at no cost.

The San Francisco-based company entered the EMR market with a splash earlier this year when it claimed to offer a Web-based system for free.

In exchange, doctors would allow a link to Google's AdSense program, which uses key words to link to advertisements that would generate revenue for Practice Fusion.

Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard said the company was never dishonest, as the Web site never said support was free, only licensing and hosting.