A federal court of appeals ruled Wednesday EHR vendor Allscripts cannot force arbitration in a class action suit brought forth by physicians who claim software from an Allscripts subsidiary did not allow them to meet federal regulations.
The suit's plaintiffs, physicians at the Pain Clinic of Northwest Florida in Panama City, originally purchased EHR software from MyWay, a subsidiary of Allscripts. According to the complaint, the MyWay software did not allow the physicians to meet federal regulations. Allscripts took the software off the market and offered the physicians a free upgrade to another Allscripts system. However, the physicians allege the new Allscripts software wasn't as effective as the previous software, and forced the practice to spend more money to retrain employees and transfer patient records. The physicians then filed suit directly against Allscripts.
Allscripts attempted to compel the physicians to arbitrate based on a clause in the physicians' original contract with the subsidiary. However, the appellate court has upheld a lower court's decision that because Allscripts wasn't a signatory on the original contract, it cannot force the physicians to arbitrate.
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