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Medfusion files suit against Allscripts, claiming the company didn’t live up to its agreement to resell Medfusion’s patient portal to EHR customers of Allscripts. Medfusion says Allscripts owes it $5 million, with damages potentially tripling the lawsuit’s value. The lawsuit claims:
- The companies signed a five-year agreement valid through July 17, 2014.
- Allscripts delayed implementation and billing of the Medfusion portal for more than a year for some customers, creating an unpaid backlog for Medfusion and causing the companies to amend the agreement to require Allscripts to start billing new customers within 30 days. Medfusion says that backlog cost it more than $10 million.
- Because Meaningful Use requirements were expected to boost demand for patient portals, Allscripts agreed to include the Medfusion portal in every new Enterprise and Pro deal it signed and market the product as its only portal solution.
- Allscripts refused to integrate Medfusion’s online forms capability.
- The companies amended their agreement to give Allscripts 55 percent of net revenue and recurring charges while Medfusion would get 45 percent.
- Allscripts acquired Jardogs early in 2013 and announced it without warning at HIMSS13, where Medfusion was co-marketing its portal with Allscripts.
- Allscripts started marketing the Jardogs product as its preferred solution (FollowMyHealth) before its contract with Medfusion ran out and also started converting customers waiting to have Medfusion’s portal implemented to the FollowMyHealth product.
- Allscripts created marketing material that compared the FollowMyHealth product to Medfusion’s with the conclusion that its own product was better.
- Allscripts stopped developing its end of any portal enhancements and blamed Medfusion when clients reported issues.
- Medfusion accused Allscripts of breach on April 14, 2014, saying it had not paid $5.5 million worth of outstanding invoices. Allscripts, it says, sent payment of just under $1 million in response and disputed the remainder.
- Medfusion says customers told it that Allscripts made misleading statements in trying to get them to sign three-year contracts with Allscripts, including that: (a) Allscripts had terminated the agreement due to Medfusion problems; (b) Medfusion was going out of business; (c) Medfusion wasn’t providing portal updates and the customer would have to implement the Allscripts product to qualify for Meaningful Use; and (g) customers would be invoiced for May even though Medfusion wasn’t invoicing Allscripts that month because of their dispute.
Reader Comments
From Hobie Cat: “Re: Google Glass. Being handed out to all medical students at UC Irvine. The link made the rounds this morning with the subject, ‘Does this have HIPAA violation written all over it?’ Perhaps someone from UC Irvine can chime in with thoughts on how they’re approaching HIPAA. I’ll also be curious about how patients respond to this technology during rounds and the perception of a student talking to themselves and head nodding toward …read more
