Electronic Health Records For Dummies

Implementation costs

The hard work you do in anticipation of the EHR transition is time and money well spent. Though you may not envision the tasks you, your team, and the vendor are doing as actual dollars spent — you didn’t write a check for them — they are, and you should account for them in your cost structure. Some vendors charge for implementation and project management; others bundle a set amount of services as part of a software as a service (SaaS) offering. Additionally, you may choose to use outside consultants to support your implementation.

Plan to spend roughly $75–$150 per hour on implementation costs, with an average implementation time per provider of 35 hours, which includes customization, training, and network setup.

Here is a detailed look at implementation costs:

Initial planning and procurement: These are the costs involved with conducting readiness assessments, researching potential vendors, creating a timeline, and narrowing your list of potential vendors. You will find that many of these tasks take a toll on your time, which has a dollar value, so it’s not always simple to estimate how much these things cost. You read more about people costs later in the chapter.

Contract negotiation: Back and forth, back and forth. That’s how contract negotiations work. You spend quite a bit of time working with your future vendor to establish parameters for how your relationship will work. Costs here may include travel expenses, legal oversight — make sure your lawyer ...