By Chandresh Shah
DOJ fines Greenway $57 million
I was planning to do part 2 of the financial analysis articles series that I started last week. I’m going to interrupt that because of a very serious news that I saw today, and you may have seen it too.
This concerns the EHR giant Greenway Health. Click here to see the article.
There are 2 major reasons for which Department of Justice has fined Greenway $57 million.
1. False EHR certification claims. Neglecting to fix the problems.
2. Paying customers kickbacks for recommending its products to others.
It is not the first time that this is happened. The first culprit was eClinicalWorks. In 2017, eClinicalWorks agreed to pay hundred and $155 million to settle allegations.
The obvious implication of this is that providers and physicians no longer know who to trust and who not. Physicians are not experts in technology. Common reasoning would lead you to believe that it would be safer to go with the product of a larger company. On the flipside, some smaller companies were acquired by larger companies and have deactivated products of these companies.
My suggestion is to stick with relatively smaller companies, not startups, that have been around for at least 10 years. Companies must have sound management and financial strength. That really is the best you can do and hope that it all works out in the end.
I’m glad to be associated with an organization that I have known for 10 years. 10 years is enough time to figure out if this is a genuine company or not, especially if your intimately involved with the decision-making process and day-to-day operations with the staff.
Although these news are scary, I am still optimistic of the future of healthcare information technology.
