Why e-clinic isn’t expensive

adminBlog, News, Software, Support, Training

One of the challenges for any company is to deal with the public perception of their product.  We’re delighted that our research shows potential customers see e-clinic as powerful and feature-rich, used by some of the top clinics and chains in the UK. However, they also see it as expensive.

Obviously,  we’re thrilled that large clinics and healthcare groups with complex needs like the Harley Medical Group use our software. However, this can give rise to the idea that e-clinic costs a lot of money and is only suitable for large clinics.

In fact, this isn’t true. The vast majority of our clients are individual practitioners and small to medium-sized clinics at a single location. They are enthusiastic users of e-clinic Standard or e-clinic Pro and pay from just £50 per user each month for a comprehensive clinic management package, hosted securely in the cloud.

We care very much about the public perception of e-clinic, and for this reason we undertake regular competitor analysis to see what else is on the market. That’s why we know that e-clinic really isn’t that expensive, and if you read on, you’ll find out why too.

User pricing variables

e-clinic is priced ‘per user’, and although this sounds simple, it can lead to confusion.

99% of clients choose the cloud-hosted version of e-clinic and here, when we say per user, we mean per concurrent user. (Some larger clients choose to host e-clinic on their own network using their own servers, in which the licensing rules and pricing structure are different). Concurrent use means the number of people using e-clinic at the same time (and includes mobile users). For example, e-clinic would allow 7 individual staff members to all have their own login, each with a unique username and password; 10 separate diaries, one for each practitioner; and mobile access when outside the clinic. Provided only 1 user was logged in at any given time, a single user system would be all that was required. Note: when that login wasn’t being used in the clinic, it could be accessed from a mobile device at home by a different individual. This low cost setup works well in a small but busy clinic where the main user is on the reception desk, but doctors need occasional access.

A more standard set up would be this one. Imagine a clinic with a reception desk and 5 doctors, but only 2 treatment rooms. As only 2 doctors would be working at any given time, we would recommend a 3 user system, allowing continual access for reception and whichever 2 doctors were treating at that time. Out of hours, any 3 of the 5 doctors could access e-clinic from home on their laptops or mobile devices.

Our ‘concurrent user’ pricing system for cloud-hosting is in stark contrast to our competitors. Some other companies quote a price ‘per doctor’ but allow ‘unlimited users’. This can make the cost prohibitively high for a clinic with many practitioners but fairly simple administrative needs. It means you are paying for the number of staff in your clinic, despite the fact that you only want to access the system from your reception desk. In this scenario, you have to pay a fee for every member of your team, whether they want to use the system or not.

Another common alternative is to price ‘per diary’, which can again make the cost prohibitively expensive when only a receptionist requires access.

Additional locations

We’re finding increasingly that many competitors charge extra for additional locations. If you’re a small clinic with ambitions to expand, this prohibits your future growth. We want to see you grow – in fact we’re pretty confident that after purchasing e-clinic you’ll see an increase in patients, turnover and profit, so we don’t want to add to the cost when you do decide to expand to a second location. With e-clinic, there is no limit to the number of sites and you can add new ones at any time without extra charges.

Hardware and hosting

e-clinic is cloud hosted, which means you don’t need a server, a network or an expensive maintenance contract. All you need is an internet connection from any computer, laptop, iPad or smart phone from which you want to access e-clinic. Even better, the cost of cloud-hosting is included in the price. (Some larger clients choose  to host e-clinic on their own network using their own servers, in which the pricing structure is different).

Ongoing support

We want you to get the most out of e-clinic and so ongoing support is completely free of charge. Our support response time and the quality of the service we provide has consistently been proven to be way above the industry average. We’re extremely proud of this and we know the peace of mind given by free and ongoing support is important to you too.

Our team are available to answer questions and solve technical problems every weekday between 9am and 5pm. The only circumstances in which a client would pay extra would be if they chose out of hours support with round the clock cover.

Upgrades

Unlike some competitors, upgrades are regular and completely free. You software will never go out of date and you’ll always have access to the latest, newly released functionality. Recently added features include the ability to create clinical forms as PDFs, an improved mobile interface and significant improvements in speed.

Additional modules or versions

We offer 3 versions of e-clinic: Standard, Pro and Enterprise. Our starting point, e-clinic Standard, is a comprehensive package and suitable for most clinics. It’s definitely not a basic package and will meet the needs of many clinics for a lifetime.

e-clinic Pro is jam-packed with functionality and has some important additional features, but these will not be needed by many clinics. Enterprise is for only the largest groups and chains.

You can move freely between these packages and upgrade (or downgrade) as you wish. There are no extra charges for ‘additional modules’ as levied by many competitors. Our research shows that many features billed as ‘additional modules’ are in fact essential (for example, one competitor charges extra for ‘marketing’ and ‘reminders and recalls’.) The cost of these modules can soon add up, and what seemed like a cheap package becomes much more pricey. With e-clinic, we prefer to make sure you have everything you need to manage a clinic efficiently and profitably, whichever version you choose.

What DOES cost extra?

The only extra charges we make are for initial training and for the text messages you send. The reason we charge for training is because every clinic’s needs are different.

Large, busy clinics may wish to book on-site training to minimise staff disruption. A cheaper choice is to arrange for your team to attend a training day in the e-clinic classroom in West Yorkshire. We’ve also produced a series of completely free online training videos which lead you through the steps necessary to use e-clinic successfully.

So, is e-clinic really that expensive?

Let’s look at the whole picture. For just £50 per month, you get a full clinic management package which can be used by many staff members (just not all at the same time), in the clinic or from home, with a full feature set, free ongoing support, free upgrades and free hosting in the cloud. Does that seem expensive to you?

This article apples to our cloud-hosted package, which is chosen by 99% of clients. A small number of larger clients choose  to host e-clinic on their own network.