Total cost of OpenEMR?

Day-to-Day Users
#1

I know this can vary but what are OpenEMR users’ average monthly costs including hosting, messaging service, etc.? For instance, MedEx costs about $100/month, right?

For a solo practice I’m trying to compare OpenEMR to a solution such as Elation Health which today (Feb. 2019) charges about $350 per “provider” (I hate that term).

I believe in free software (free as in freedom) and that’s what led me to investigate OpenEMR over the past year or so but it’s a lot of work and I am a real novice when it comes to understanding the backend of OpenEMR.

Paul

#2

Hi @paulr,

Welcome to the community. You correctly guessed price is going to vary on the clinic. To deploy to Amazon’s AWS platform you have a couple of option. This datasheet helps show the estimated cost, note the “AWS Marketplace” means a relatively automated install process, where as Express Plus will require some tech skills, nothing the community wouldn’t help you learn, just something to consider.

The prices listed are what you’ll be paying AWS for the infrastructure. You don’t pay OpenEMR per “user” - the price you see is purely for the resources required to run the underlying resources.

Hope that helps estimate your costs!

#3

Paul,
OpenEMR is free and you have different options to select from Amazon hosting.
You only pay to Amazon for their hosting cost.
Here is a link from Open-emr on package comparison:
https://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/AWS_Cloud_Packages_Comparison

Here is a price link from AWS:
Standard Edition:
https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/OEMR-OpenEMR-Cloud-Standard-Edition/B07BBT4C1H

Express Edition:
https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/B077G76DWN

By the way, is the concern price or functionality from your current vendor?

Visolve OpenEMR support Team

#4

Visolve, I have not started my practice yet so this is not a change / upgrade from an existing EMR.

Thanks for the replies. This helps to clarify the hosting costs, but what about other costs? Using a service to send SMS for appointment reminders, for example, would be an additional cost, right? Perhaps you pay for a domain name and hosting if you use wordpress for a patient portal. This would be an additional cost. This is what I would like to know - the total cost, not just the cost of hosting.

#5

So the cost we gave earlier is to run just the EMR. Hosting a website is relatively cheap, <$12 a month usually. Domain names are usually <$20 a year, I think the portal could be run from the AWS package, but @jesdynf can clarify the security of that. You don’t, under any typical circumstances, want your EMR available publicly. With a bit of setup you can still likely secure this to just your practices IP address.

Or you could just use Wordpress to drive your website with a separate hosting package, whatever you’re using to host your website would be just fine

#6

You will need some form of e-prescibing service. I am using allscripts/paradigm basic at $9/month. You will also need a billing clearinghouse. I am using Office Ally which varies between free and $35/month depending on the payer mix of your claims.