Free medical billing software is available, but that doesn’t mean it won’t cost you anything. In order to get an idea of how much it could cost you we need to consider it from a couple of perspectives.

The free software business model

First it is important to understand how the concept of free software works. We won’t get into the technicalities of describing differences between terms like

• Open source
• GNU
• Freeware
• Shareware
• and any number of others that you might come across

In your quest for free software you will often come across a quote that goes like this – Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech’, not as in ‘free beer’” by Richard Stallman creator of the popular GNU Project. What Stallman is saying in the proceeding quote is that you should look at the idea of free in terms of software to mean that you are free to-

1. Run the program for any purpose you wish
2. Study and modify the program to suit your own needs
3. Freedom to copy and distribute the program to other people
4. Freedom to make changes, and improve the program and release those modifications to everyone else

Notice in those four freedoms, Stallman never once mentions free in terms of price, or time, or maintenance. Free software means you have liberties with that software you don’t have with licensed software. It does not mean it is free of monetary cost.

How free medical billing software makes money

If you go looking for free medical billing software you’ll find one thing in common across the board. It isn’t really free. Sure, you can download and install it free of charge but things like general support, being able to use it on a network, and upgrades so it is fully functional require you to pay something out of pocket. In other words they sell you a plain, white box with the word free medical billing software on the top of it. What you do with it is up to you. How you use it and how you figure out the way it works is totally on your shoulders.

Before I scare anyone off the idea of using free software for your medical billing practice that is not my intention. I’m a huge proponent of the open source licensing model. I’m just being honest about how these things work. If you download free software and then spend a few thousand dollars getting someone to come in and setup your system to use it have you really saved any money? $800, $900, $5000 are all appreciable sums of money for most health care practices but you need to consider what comes packaged with that cost.

• Support for the product. Free software support usually consists of searching on Google and then spending hours reading message forums. When I first began to learn about the Linux operating system I was constantly assaulted with RTFM!!!! NUB!!!!. Translation: Read the F’ing manual, new guy! If you go the free software route be prepared to deal with that mentality. A disadvantage that should be noted is that when a commercial software product reaches it’s “end of life” the support generally goes away.
• Compatibility of the product. If the programs who make, and/or maintain free software don’t see a need to make it work with certain other software it isn’t going to happen. Sure, you have the option of having a programmer modify the code to suit your needs, but then any savings you might have realized by using free software is erradicated. With commercial software they want to keep their customers happy. They’re going to be much more inclined to implement the changes that make your life easier
• Easier to get management to agree to it. If you need to change, upgrade, or even begin using medical billing software a commercial product is going to be a lot more appealing to the people who make the money decisions. You’d think the opposite would be true, but in reality people equate the idea of free to mean poorly made and can’t be sold because it is so bad. After you’ve made about 5 or 6 power point presentations and walked senior staff through the most basic of usage for a free program you begin to appreciate commerical medical billing software even more than before.

Risks involved with free medical billing software

There are several risks that health care provider should be concerned with regarding their billing software. We will just take a brief look at two of them.

• Legal protection
  
  Is it HIPPA compliant? Some is and some isn’t. With free billing software it will be up to you and your staff to figure that out. With commercial medical billing programs that is almost always guaranteed by the developer.
• Updated regularly
  
  In this case I’m talking about things like medical terms, and common accepted practices. Developing a piece of software is the easy part. Keeping that software updated and functioning according to “today’s” standard can be a little more tricky.