After a series of disappointing experiences, Alan Dappen had given up on EHRs for his busy, direct-to-consumer primary care practice. Everything took too many clicks in too many screens, and was overly-focused on insurance billing requirements. His son (a programmer) figured he could at least build something better than MS Word files and folders, so the first version of Cerbo was born as a nights-and-weekends collaboration between Alan and his son. Their goal: to build a basic EHR focused on flexibility, efficiency, and better patient communication.
Providers working with Dr. Dappen were impressed, and some of them took the system with them when they moved on, or recommended it to practices that they were joining. Several of these early adopter practices were cash-based integrative or functional medicine practices, with the result that early product development naturally focused on features for both direct care and integrative/functional medicine. And that was before these were the hottest trends in healthcare!
A decade and a half later, we’ve come a long way from “basic EHR”, building out functionality far beyond what was ever imagined at the start. Today, we serve hundreds of practices and, indirectly, hundreds of thousands of patients. And still growing strong by word of mouth! We suspect that’s in in no small part because what motivates our work is the belief that your EHR should work for you.
Wondering about our brand overhaul? We’ve launched a new product name to more clearly convey that the system isn’t just for MDs! The company is still MD HQ, and the EHR is the same great product as always, just with a shiny new name and logo! Cerbo means “brain” in Esperanto, and we chose it because the EHR is the clinic’s nerve center: it’s organizational, processing, and data storage hub.
