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OfficeMate historically has not allowed the use of the scroll wheel in its applications, which is totally stupid. Using the mouse’s scroll wheel really speeds up my data entry.

Somewhere along the way between 2006 and now I think they fixed this issue in ExamWriter because my plain vanilla Dell computer with its USB mouse with scroll wheel is now able to wheel scroll in ExamWriter 7.4.2 (EDIT: A simple search of my own website reveals that starting with 7.4 they enabled ExamWriter wheel scrolling). It still isn’t fixed in OfficeMate’s third party billing application. When I want to do “CMS Maintanence” for a claim (that’s technical talk for manually updating fields in a HCFA-1500), it doesn’t allow scrolling with the wheel.

Thankfully, there is an application called KatMouse. I heard about it from Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte’s podcast, Security Now. This small application enables scrolling for most every application. I installed it, and now I can scroll with the mouse’s wheel when editing a HCFA.

Thank you, KatMouse! Shame on you OfficeMate.

By the way, OfficeMate. Do you really think it’s a good idea to charge $1200+ per year for the “Annual Software Maintenance Agreement” (ASMA)? It feels like extortion. I mean, some less scrupulous optometrist could pay a kid less than $1200 to crack your ASMA, and then where would you be? (Not that any optometrist would be that unethical, but I’m just sayin’.) If I pay several thousand dollars for the program in the first place, I think I should be able to use it without strings attached. Instead of disabling editing of all records, why not just disable stuff like VisionWeb? Or maybe make your money off of established clients by charging for new features/upgrades. (Still provide security fixes for free).

Sooner or later someone is going to come up with a really nice, free, open-source optometry practice management system using PHP and MySQL on a Linux box. When that happens, watch out, OfficeMate.

Tags: EHR, OfficeMate, PMS

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