Excerpted from...  Technology in Practice  October 2001

Software aids the selection process

Creating a concise request for proposal and then comparing competing vendor responses are two of the most difficult chores in picking a practice management software vendor.

The first requires a clear vision of what a practice needs. The second requires the tenacity to sort through—and compare—vendor proposals.

Faced with these difficult tasks, Trish Owens turned to On-Line Consultant Software, a Roseville, Calif. company that has carved out a peculiar niche. Its application targets businesses looking to buy software for human resources, manufacturing and accounting purposes. In addition to physician practice management, its health care "RFP software" helps purchasers choose among hospital, radiology and pharmacy information systems.

Intrigued by On-Line Consultant’s promise "to objectively compare an unlimited number of vendors," Owens (purchased) the software, which creates an electronic RFP that a practice can send to potential vendors. It was money well spent, says Owens, business office manager of Southern Colorado Clinic, a 16-physician multi-specialty group in Pueblo.

The software provides a checklist of features and options a practice would like in its practice management system. "We include about 600 functional and 100 general questions," says Nancy Greene, vice president of On-Line Consultant Software. "The questions are very specific. People buy practice management systems and assume they will do everything they want. That’s not a good assumption to make when you’re spending $10,000 or more."

Owens printed out the list of questions and took them to the practice’s physician executives. "It was huge, but we went through each question," she recalls. "It took us two days, but it raised a lot of issues we didn’t think of."

For example, the questionnaire asked if the practice needed to track multiple fee schedules for the same insurer. For Owens, the answer was yes. The clinic’s local Blues plan offers six options for patients, with varying co-pays and benefits.

After the form was complete, Owens e-mailed it to a variety of practice management software vendors.... The subsequent electronic document provided a good springboard to analyzing vendors, Owens says. She hopes to pick a finalist soon.