CollaborateMD Offers Money-Saving SaaS Solution amid Escalating Financial Crisis

By Michael Dinan

TMCnet Editor

 

Hailing its Web-based product as a cost-savings measure at a time when many small businesses are struggling, an Orlando-based company is reporting that its Software as a Service solution for the healthcare industry led to third-quarter growth.

 

Officials with Orlando-based CollaborateMD say their Internet practice management and electronic medical billing software save time and money for medical practices.

 

According to CollaborateMD officials, the surge in demand for its software is due to its affordability.

 

“Specifically, the pay-as-you-go pricing model and wide variety of complimentary features with minimal up-front and monthly fees has attracted a great deal of attention from medical practices and billing services trying to save money given the recent economic instability,” company officials say.

 

That instability is leading the U.S. Treasury Department today to look at ways to put money directly into banks, according to Deborah Solomon of The Wall Street Journal.

 

“As the financial crisis continues to escalate, Treasury has begun fleshing out ways to use its authority to make direct injections into financial institutions, according to a person familiar with the matter,” Solomon writes. “Treasury is figuring out how to structure such infusions so that banks can recapitalize and begin lending.”

 

It isn’t clear how the economic situation will affect the IT industry.

 

As TMC President and Group Editor-in-Chief Rich Tehrani wrote in a recent blog entry, all sectors of the global economy likely are at risk. Yet the situation also could benefit businesses that focus on areas that save money and bolster production, Tehrani says, such as unified communications, telepresence, workforce automation and fixed-mobile convergence.

 

SaaS (News - Alert) is another way that customers can save money. Generally speaking, it’s a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By getting rid of the need to install and run an application on the customer's own computer, SaaS reduces the cost of software maintenance, operation and support.

 

According to CollaborateMD’s president and chief executive officer, Douglas Kegler, medical groups are using his company’s product in increasing numbers to reduce spending.

 

“We will continue to serve as an oasis for medical organizations in this tight credit market because we offer a low implementation fee and monthly pay-as-you-go plans versus typical software and license models provided by non-SaaS competitors,” Kegler said.